


Gold Rush

by AnnieVH



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Twins, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Humor, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-08-30 23:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8554300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnieVH/pseuds/AnnieVH
Summary: One afternoon, Mr. Gold gets a visit from a woman named Gloria who brings with her a revelation that turns his world upside down: a twin brother that he never even knew he had. In the aftermath of that meeting, he comes to Belle French (the most sensible of the French twins) for assistance on how to handle this situation.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this prompt: http://rumbelleprompts.tumblr.com/post/148814024355/gold-and-another-rc-character-find-out-they-are
> 
> Picspam: http://annievh.tumblr.com/post/149010226797/gold-rush-nickgloria-and-goldbelle-based-on-this
> 
> Beta: Maddie

Vintage vinyls or books?

Vintage vinyls or books... now, that was the question, and it had seemed an easy one when he first thought of it. Given that both women looked exactly the same, he could just pick one by means of “eenie meenie miney moe” and be done with it. But now that they were actually in front of him, he was confronted with the reality, or rather, the _madness_ of his situation and was overwhelmed by it.

These two women, who shared the same face, the same DNA even, might look like one person, but they were not. They were simply twin sisters. That didn't mean they were any less individual than anyone else.

Right?

Belle, the bookworm, was the quiet one, who'd much rather have the company of a good book than another human being. She did as she was told, worked hard to help her father around the shop, and volunteered at the local library. Every time she saw him on the street, she gave him a smile and wished him a good morning, something that, more often than not, Gold completely ignored.

Lacey, the barfly, was loud in every aspect of her life, from her clothes to her choices. She was the one the town liked to talk about, and he couldn't walk into Granny's for breakfast without overhearing one of the waitresses talking about Lacey French and her new boyfriend, or Lacey French and her drinking. She caused Maurice a lot of headache. And every time _she_ saw him on the street, she turned her face to not have to deal with him.

Not taking into account the couple of times she'd gone as far as to tell him to go fuck himself because he'd given one of her boyfriends a hard time.

He needed one of them. He needed a twin. But it couldn't just be _any_ of them.

Lacey was the one to spot him first, loitering just outside their door. Gold could hear her piercing shriek, “ _Daaaad! Mr. Gold is heeeere!_ ” leaving him no other choice but to enter.

Belle smiled from behind the register with her usual I'm-a-good-neighbor candor, “Hi, Mr. Gold. Did you come to buy a flower?”

Lacey, who was arranging flowers in a vase, chuckled. “Wouldn't _that_ be something?” To him, she asked, “Who's the special lady, Gold? I assume it's a lady? And that she's sane?”

Any other day, Gold would have growled at her. _My special lady is called_ eviction notice _, Miss French. Perhaps you'd like to introduce her to your boyfriend, given that Mr. Nottingham hasn't paid his rent yet. That, assuming you're both sober enough to actually talk_.

But today, he could only stare. Twins. They were, and there was no other word to describe it, _freaky_. It was amazing that he spent forty eight years without giving it more than a passing thought of dismissive curiosity. People shouldn't look exactly the same. It made no sense. It was, somehow, against the laws of nature. A cosmic joke. Twins were _a cosmic joke_.

“It's not rent day.”

Gold snapped out of his trance. Maurice French had come into the room and was looking at him with the usual disdain he seemed to reserve especially for him and Lacey's long string of lovers. He didn't look like his girls. Didn't act like them either. Maurice had always struck him as a rather short-sighted, unambitious man. He didn't have Belle's sweetness, nor did he have Lacey fire – granted, that girl probably took her anger issues after him, but there had always been so much _more_ in her than in the old man.

“I'm not here to talk about rent,” he said. “I'm here to talk to your daughter.”

“About what?”

Gold sighed, forced back to his initial question. Vintage vinyls or books?

There was no question that Lacey would give it to him straight, while Belle would sugarcoat the truth until it resembled what he wanted to hear. She would hold nothing back and give him all the information he wanted, uncensored. Besides, everyone knew that Lacey French had some unfriendly opinions on her darling older... younger... her twin sister. She'd definitely not paint his entire situation as a soap-opera miracle.

However, when one wanted information, they didn't go to the girl who spent most of her school years cutting class and flunking school. They went to Belle. She might sugarcoat her information and perhaps skip the nasty details, but she'd have researched your topic of need to exhaustion. And she'd do it with an irritating smile on her lips and a cheerful disposition to help.

Either way, Gold felt screwed.

“About what, Gold?” Maurice insisted.

Belle didn't drink. She'd be less likely to spill his secret.

“Books,” he decided. “I've just found a box of old books and I'd like your daughter's help to evaluate their price.”

Maurice raised an eyebrow, then looked at his daughter.

Belle shrugged. “Sure, I could help. But I don't really know anything about _selling_ books.”

“Belle thinks the value of the book is in what lies inside of it,” Lacey said. “And not in how much it's worth.”

“They're written in French,” Gold said, looking at Belle. “You're the one who speaks French, aren't you?”

“I do. I might be a bit rusty, but-”

“I need you to read a couple of pages, and then you're free to go.”

“Hold on,” Maurice said, raising a hand to order him to stop. “You can't just walk in here and demand my daughter just because you hit a wall. She's _working_ , in case you haven't noticed. She's-”

“I'll give you a hundred dollars,” he interrupted.

Belle's eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

“Hey, I like books too, you know?” Lacey said.

“When was the last time you read a book, dearie?” Gold asked, with a smirk.

“When was the last time you fucked a-”

“Lacey!” Belle shouted.

Her sister threw him a dirty look, but decided to focus on her flowers again.

“So? One hundred dollars? Shouldn't take you more than a couple of hours.”

Belle seemed to think about. Then, in a tentative voice, she said, “I'll... do it for two hundred.”

Maurice chuckled. Even Gold couldn't repress a crooked smile.

“I'm sure your sister would help me for less.”

“Her sister can't read,” Lacey said, angrily, plucking the petals of a daisy.

“Very well, Miss French,” Gold said. “Two hundred. But we have to leave now.”

Belle threw her father a glance. Lacey would've left the flower shop with him without giving dear old dad a second thought. She was a grown woman, after all. Maurice had no say in what she did. But Belle still wanted to make sure everything was alright.

Maurice didn't seem happy, but nodded, “Fine, go. Be back for dinner.”

“Thanks, dad.”

Lacey scoffed at her sister. “Daddy's girl.”

Belle seemed bothered by her comment, but still gave her sister a kiss when she walked past her. Despite the mockery, Lacey looked up from her daisies just in time to give Belle a tiny smile. Sisters, despite their differences.

Freaky, Gold thought. _Definitely_ freaky.

He walked Belle to the pawnshop without saying a word. She tried to initiate conversation (“So what are these books about?”) but he nipped that idea in the bud (“They're in French, girl. How would I know?”) and they didn't talk for four blocks. Once they were inside, though, he locked the door and walked around the counter. Belle stood in the middle of his shop, fiddling with her hands as she waited.

“So...” she asked, looking around. “Where are the books you wanted me to take a look at?”

“There are no books,” he announced, reaching for his wallet and taking two crisp one hundred dollar bills.

He placed them over the glass counter and raised his eyes at Belle.

Belle raised an eyebrow, her face going from friendly and helpful to suspicious in a heartbeat.

“I have no idea what you're thinking of, but if this is a sex thing, you should've taken your chances with Lacey.”

Gold rolled his eyes. “For goodness' sake. No, Miss French, this isn't 'a sex thing'.”

“Right.”

“ _At all_.”

“Right...” she nodded. Then, “Are you sure, because it looks _quite_ creepy-”

“I have a question.”

She blinked at him. “Okay?”

“And I'm going to ask you to answer it to the best of your ability.”

“Uhn... okay?”

“And part of the reason I'm willing to pay two hundred dollars for this answer is because I want you to be _discreet_.”

He spoke the last word through his teeth, a clear demand.

“I can be discreet,” Belle said.

“ _Very_ discreet.”

“I understand.”

“That means I don't want you to talk about this with your friends, or even or annoying sister.”

“Yes, I understand the meaning of the word 'discreet', Mr. Gold.”

Gold stared at her right in the eye, expecting her to look away in terror, or burst into tears. That was usually the outcome. Instead, she just stared back with growing impatience.

“Well, what is the question?”

There was still a moment of silence as Gold went over his limited options in his head. Once he decided that this was... not the _best_ one, but the one that terrified him the least, he pushed the money closer to her. Belle folded it neatly and put it away in her purse.

When the money was out of sight, he asked, “You and your sister?”

“Yes?”

“You're twins.”

Once he didn't elaborate on that statement, Belle said, “...I know.”

“How does that work?”

“I'm sorry?”

“This... twin... thing... how does that... work?”

Belle waited. He knew she wanted him to add more information to his question, but he couldn't. Mostly because he wasn't even sure what was it that he wanted to know.

“I'm... not sure what you're asking me, Mr. Gold.”

“Twins,” he said, repeating the word as if it were her duty to make sense of this madness. After all, he was paying her, wasn't he? “Twins. I want you to explain _twins_ to me.”

“Right... well... when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much-”

He waved a hand rather comically in the air. “What?! _No_! _Stop_! This isn't what I'm-”

And then he saw her laughing.

“Very funny,” he deadpanned.

“I'm sorry, but you're not making any sense!” she said, a little giggle still in her voice. “What is it that you want to know about twins so badly? I mean, if this isn't a fetish thing-”

“No!” he said, outraged that she'd even suggest such a thing.

“Are you asking me for biology?”

Gold searched his mind. “I don't know.”

“Are you asking to know my, what, first hand experience?”

“Maybe?”

“Are you just curious?”

“I might.”

She sighed at his vague answers.

“It's a delicate subject,” he confessed.

“Okay,” Belle conceded. “Then how about we start from the beginning. Why the sudden interest in twins?”

“Because I think I might have one.”

His answer was blurted out so fast he feared Belle wouldn't have heard it the first time. If he had to repeat it again... if he had to face it... he hadn't allowed himself to think even think about it in two weeks, but now... now he was asking the florist's daughter about twins – like a crazy person, one might add – and telling her, a complete stranger, about this sudden mess that he found himself thrown into.

Judging by the look of complete and utter shock on Belle's face, though, Gold was willing to bet that she'd heard him the first time.

“Okay...” she finally said, and reached for her purse before turning on her heels and heading for the door.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Granny's.”

“But you haven't answered my-”

“Oh, I know,” she said, looking at him from the door. “But I assume there's quite a story here.”

“You have no idea.”

“Well then! I find that a complicated story always makes more sense when it's accompanied by onion rings and iced tea.”

Gold stared at her.

“Now, are you joining me, or should I get us some take out?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Routine could be deceiving, though Gold often forgot about that and went about his days as if they were more or less the same. He liked a well-structured, boring, repetitive routine, where no surprises could sneak up on him. And on the odd chance that one did manage to break through, at least those were infrequent and, in the grand scheme of things, barely consequential. Or so he kept telling himself.

He began his morning preparing breakfast himself. His busy schedule usually didn't allow for such indulgence, but Saturdays were hell at Granny's, with the diner becoming overcrowded and loud, so he decided to stay home. A quick read of the paper revealed nothing relevant happening in their little town, and the morning news on the radio didn't add anything of importance – unless you counted the upcoming Miner's Day, which he didn't.

First on his list was an early visit to Mother Superior and her nuns, who'd like to discuss making some renovations on the building they'd been renting for the last three years. Gold was opposed to it. And just because she wasted his time trying to convince him otherwise, he also forbade them from making those ridiculous candles inside the building, claiming they were a fire hazard. Which they probably were.

A meeting with Madam Mayor came next to discuss city regulations and the acquisition of property so that she could build a new playground. Election year was not too far away, you see. A picture of Regina Mills surrounded by smiling children would go a long way. Two hours were wasted on arguing the price and trading passive-aggressive remarks over her desk. Very little was settled.

At least the morning ended with an uneventful visit to Dr. Hopper to pick up his rent. After Regina's acid and Mother Superior's barely contained despise, it was a nice break to see a non-judgmental face. Gold even went as far as to pat his drooling dalmatian on the head.

In retrospect, he'd been naive to believe that the most out of the ordinary thing to happen that day would be just that: patting a dog. But that was just what Gold thought. The morning had gone well, all things considered, and everything was fine.

It was only at two o'clock, as he was finishing a lonely lunch in the back of his shop – cold leftovers turned into a sandwich – and looking forward to having a whole afternoon to himself, when the woman showed up. First, came the cheering sound of the bell above his door. Then, a tentative, “Excuse me? Is anyone here?”

Gold wiped his mouth and grabbed his cane, saying, “A moment.” Whatever this was, he could handle it in a few minutes, and then he'd flip the sign on the front door. There was a clock in need of repairs that he'd been looking forward to working on for a couple of weeks now and hell if anyone would get in his way.

The woman who was waiting for him in the front of the shop was a stranger. In a town as small as Storybrooke, everyone knew everybody, either by name or reputation, but this woman he had never seen before. There was always the chance that she'd gone out of her way to avoid him, or that she was new in town, but he couldn't remember an Englishwoman ever being mentioned at _Granny's_. Most likely she was a tourist who'd come to browse for antiques. They usually took their time examining every single item in his shop, but at least they tended to buy a lot more than your average Storybrooke citizen, who only seemed to come to his shop with the intent of harassing him or whining about their financial problems.

Gold put on his best friendly-antiques-dealer smile.

“Hello, madam. How can I help you today?”

She stared at him and her eyes grew in size as she gave him a look over. Her gaze started on his face, then all the way down to his shoes, and back to his face again.

“Madam?”

“It's true,” she whispered, haunted. “You're just like...”

Her mouth hung open, but no more words came out of it.

“Is... everything alright?” he tried. The last thing he needed was for her to have a stroke in the middle of his shop. He didn't think he could be liable for something like that, but you never know.

“Just like...” she repeated, then she snapped out of it. “I'm sorry. I'm... hello.” She stepped forward and offered him her hand. “Hello. My name is Gloria Rush. I'm looking for Mr. Gold.”

Gold took her hand in his and shook it quickly. “That would be me.”

“Yes. I can see. I...”

She trailed off again, her eyes squinting as she looked at his face and Gold could see that she was making an effort not to tilt her head to the side to better examine him.

“Are you sure you're feeling alright, Miss Rush?”

“No. Yes. I'm sorry, I...”

She trailed off again.

This was getting annoying.

Gloria Rush turned around and paced three steps towards the door, then came back to where he stood. Gold moved behind the glass counter, hoping that would be enough to keep him safe in case the woman revealed to be the dangerous kind of crazy, and not just the annoying kind.

“You're Gold,” she stated. “You're Gold, you're... _him_. You're- _ha_!”

Her laughter startled him, but the shock on his face didn't convince her to stop.

And then she started crying.

Of course she did.

“Miss Rush,” he tried, very carefully not to upset her, “perhaps I should call you a-”

“Mrs. Rush.”

Good god, someone had actually _married_ that woman.

“Mrs. Rush, very well,” he said, and tried to spot a husband waiting for her on the sidewalk, but there didn't seem to be anyone. “I can see that you're very... emotional.”

She laughed again. Good _god_!

“That's just another word for crazy. I'm acting crazy. I know. I'm so sorry, I'm-” She reached for a package of paper tissues inside her purse and took a couple to dry her tears and blow her nose. “I'm sorry, this is _insane_ , this whole situation is _insane_.”

“Yes, I think _insane_ is a good way to put it,” he agreed, taking a small step towards the back of the shop. If she pounced, perhaps he could still make it to the bathroom and lock the door. Gloria Rush didn't seem to be too big of a woman, though she was about his height, and with two good legs that could chase him down rather effectively.

“You shake hands like my husband,” she said, interrupting his train of thought.

“...Alright.”

“You both shake hands like you cannot wait to let go. You know? Nick just can't help it. He's not a people person.” She looked at him again, tissues crumpled in her hand. “You don't strike me as a people person either.”

“Mrs. Rush,” Gold tried, taking one more step towards the curtain on his back, “may I ask what is it that you want with me?”

“Of course. This is- I have to pull myself together. I'm so glad Nick is not here to see this, because he would-” she laughed again. “He would _not_ know how to handle this.”

“Yes, of course, and you're doing it _masterfully_ well, whatever this is,” Gold said, though in hindsight, it might not have been the most sensible thing to say to a crazy person.

But she didn't seem upset. Instead, she simply asked, “You're Nicholas Gold, yes?”

“Yes.”

“You were born on January 14th, 1961, in Glasgow.”

Gold narrowed his eyes at her. That wasn't a question.

“Your father's name is Malcolm Gold, yes? And your mother-”

“I am one more fun fact away from calling the Sheriff and having her escort you out of town, dearie. I suggest you get to the point.”

“Right. Of course. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound- I was only-”

“ _To the point_ , Mrs. Rush.”

Gloria Rush reached for her purse again and she must have seen the look of panic on his face because, before he had the chance to turn around and run not to find out the crazy lady had a gun, she said, “I must be scaring you.”

“No.”

She smiled knowingly. “Alright, then.”

“You're not scaring me,” he insisted, but it was with some relief that Gold saw her produce a manila envelope from her purse and put it down on the counter.

Gold eyed it with suspicion. She looked back at him, her mouth shut, a tiny smile in the corners of it, perfectly composed. Perfectly sane.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Proof.”

“Of what?”

Gloria Rush sighed. “I'm about to say something that might sound crazy-”

“Oh, _now_ you're going to start with the crazy stuff?”

“Yes, fair enough. Uhn...” She thought for a few seconds, then said, she opened the manila envelope, saying, “My husband, Nicholas, he's a professor, a mathematician. Best in his field.” She smiled with affection. “One of those beautiful minds, you know? A couple of months ago, he was approach by the military. They needed a mathematician to help them solve a problem. Now, don't ask me what that was, they never got to the point of telling us. I'm not even sure I really want to know. The military in this country has always made me a little uncomfortable-”

“Why are you telling me this?” Gold demanded, on the edge of his patience.

“Because my husband looks like this.”

Gloria Rush handed over the copy of a driver's license and, for a moment, Gold thought he was staring at his own face. This woman had somehow gotten access to his driver's license and lord knows what other kind of information, and was showing him a copy of it. The purpose was unclear, but it had to be something nefarious. Gold's mind went from stalker to blackmail to serial killer – and then he read the name on the license.

_Nicholas Rush._

He frowned. That was not his name. That was _his face_ , but that was not his name. All the information that followed could very well be applied to him ( _Sex: Male; Height: 5'7''; Weight: 170 lb; Eyes: Brown; Hair: Brown_ ) but the last name was wrong.

Come to think of it, so was the picture. He'd never have been so careless with his own appearance, especially when taking a picture for an official document. Yet, here it was. _His face_. Covered in stubble and almost _smiling_ at the camera. He could tell that he wasn't wearing a tie either, which was just absurd. His face, on a California issued driver's license, a state he'd never visited, looking uncharacteristically sloppy.

“What is this?” he asked.

“As I was saying,” Gloria continued, “the military, they did a very thorough background check. Routine, they said. We didn't really think much of it. But once the military started digging, they found, well, _you_.”

Another sheet of paper came his way. A copy of his own driver's license, this time. Gold looked twice at the picture, just to make sure the face he was seeing was really himself.

“And your father.”

Another driver's license, this one showing Malcolm Gold, age seventy, looking either bored or drunk. Gold would like to believe it was the latter, but it wasn't likely.

“Are you trying to say... that your husband is my brother?” he asked. It wasn't like he'd never thought about it. He had no idea how to _feel_ about something like that, but given the number of girlfriends Malcolm Gold had had, it had always seemed a miracle to him that the old man only managed to impregnate one.

“Well...” said Gloria Rush, looking even more uncomfortable than before. “Actually...”

She produced two more sheets of paper from the manila envelope. Birth certificates. Gold's eyes doubled in size when he recognized his own name in one of them.

His own birth certificate. He'd never seen it before in his life, but this stranger had it in her possession. And this looked like the original, too, the page yellowed and torn, the black letters faded. The information on it seemed vague, and nothing he didn't already know, but he still read every word of it. His own name had been written by hand in the first box, followed by the date and place of birth, including the time (7:13am, which was news to him) and the name of the hospital. His father's name and surname had been written in, as well as his mother's, but his occupation had been left blank, which was no surprise. His father had also signed as the informant and Gold could tell Malcolm Gold had written this. After nearly fifty years, he still looped the top of his M and finished his D with a long, pointless flourish. The registrar had signed it as well.

Overall, Gold would've found the document rather underwhelming, given the amount of work the lack of it had given him over the years. This was the reason why he almost didn't get a green card? Really? This black and white piece of paper that only proved the time of his birth and that his father had always been averse to working? Yes, he would have found this new discovery quite a bit disappointing, were it not for two factors.

One, he really wanted to keep this and would pay Gloria Rush handsomely for her troubles if she allowed him to have it and, as a bonus, left his shop without another word. This was a part of his own history, and given his troublesome relationship with his father, that part of his life had always been inaccessible to him.

And two, right next to the hospital name, the registrar had scribbled down: _twin, first_.

Gold stared at those two words in silence. When he heard Gloria Rush breathe in, getting ready to speak again, he flipped to the second page. Another birth certificate.

_Name (if given): --_

_When and Where Born With Hour of Birth: January 14 th, 1961, 7:37am, Glasgow, Scotland. Royal Maternity Hospital. Twin, second._

_Sex: Male_

_Name and Surname of Father: Malcolm Gold._

_Occupation of father: --_

_Name and Maiden Surname of Mother: Morgana Fay_

_Signature of Informant: Malcolm Gold_

He had a brother. A twin.His father had always been good at screwing up things on the first try.

The bell on the door rang, getting his attention.

“Hey, Mr. Gold-” David Nolan tried.

Gold didn't give him the chance.

“GET OUT!” he roared, making both Gloria and David startle.

The other man stopped in his tracks. “Whoa! Easy, I just came to-”

“I DON'T CARE WHY YOU CAME GET OUT!”

David turned around and slammed the door as quickly as possible.

Gloria Rush cleared her throat, mildly bothered, but didn't say anything.

Gold didn't even bother to look up and continued to go from one page to the other, like a child playing spot the difference. There had to be a mistake. But as far as he could tell, both certificates were identical and both had been signed by his father. The only difference that he could see was that there was a blank space where this person's, his brother's, his _twin's_ name was supposed to be.

“He didn't give him a name.”

“No,” Gloria said, that small word infused with so much anger he actually glanced at her. Her lips were a thin line and her hands had turned into fists on the counter. “I suppose your parents weren't expecting him.”

“But he's called-”

“Nicholas, yes. It was his adoptive parent's choice.” She twisted her mouth in disgust. “Probably the only good thing they gave him.”

Gold kept staring down at the papers spread on the glass counter. Nicholas Rush's face on his driver's license, his father's dull eyes, his father's signatures that might as well have been just one, so identical and indisputable they were, his mother's name, and those two single words that had just thrown everything he thought he knew out of the window: _Twin, first_.

Guess this makes me the eldest, he thought.

“You didn't know,” Gloria said.

“No.”

“I wasn't sure. They told us you didn't, but I thought that perhaps your father would've-”

“My father didn't tell me anything. We don't talk much.”

“Good.”

Gold raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her.

“He... doesn't seem to be a very good man, from what I read. That's why I came to you first.”

“I think the people of this town would disagree.”

“That young man surely would,” she said, her tone a subtle chastising. Before Gold could protest, she added, “But there was nothing in what they gave us that made me think you'd be unreasonable.”

Gold frowned.

“Just how much information did the government give you?”

“Enough to make you paranoid about good, old Uncle Sam. But I've brought everything we had on you. I'm sorry I read it all but... you can keep it, if that's of any consolation. Except for this.” She picked her husband's birth certificate. “There's a copy in the envelope, in case you want to have a specialist take a look at it.”

Gold could have laughed, if the situation wasn't so serious. “A _specialist_ in birth certificates of long lost twins? I'm sure I have one of those on call.”

“I just don't want you to think I'm trying to con you, that's all.”

Gold nodded. The possibility had crossed his mind, but it didn't stick. There was something honestly desperate about Gloria Rush, an eagerness to make this work that wasn't easy to fake. Then again, for all he knew she was an excellent actress.

She looked at the paper in her hands and sighed with sorrow. “Nick didn't even want me to keep this.”

“I assume he didn't want to come, either.”

Gloria looked away, her face becoming a mas of guilt.

Gold smirked at her. “Your husband doesn't know you're here, does he?”

“You have to understand that this is painful for him. Well, you _do_ understand. But-”

“This isn't painful,” Gold protested.

Gloria stared at him.

“Very well,” she said, after a moment. “Then, whatever this is, we can both agree that it isn't easy. And I don't want my husband to miss out on an opportunity to meet the only family he has left just because he doesn't want to deal with it. If you and I could talk to him, perhaps then he'll-”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Gold cut in. “Stop. What do you mean, _talk to him_?”

“Over dinner.”

“You're joking.”

Gloria seemed taken aback by that.

“Why would I be joking?”

“I don't even know this...” He gestured at the picture of Nicholas Rush. “This man.”

“Yes, that would be the point of dinner,” Gloria said, unperturbed by his reluctance. “So that you could both meet.”

“Why?”

“Because you're family.”

“Family,” Gold repeated, the word lacking all of Gloria's warmth and optimism in his lips. “That's something.”

He began walking around the counter.

Gloria said, “This is a lot to process.”

“Right,” Gold said, without looking at her.

“I understand that it might take a while before you're comfortable with-”

“Right.”

“And I'd hate to force you into something neither you nor my husband are comfortable with-”

“Yet, here you are.”

“Yes,” she conceded as he walked away from her. “Fair point. And I hate that I had to dump all of this on you, but there's no social protocol for things like this.”

“Yes, great.”

Gold opened the front door.

Gloria looked at it from her place at the counter, then at him.

“Mr. Gold,” she said, carefully, “I'm sure you still have questions that I could-”

“I don't. Now if you could leave, I'm a very busy man.”

“I'd think this would take precedence over-”

“It doesn't.”

He thought she'd keep on trying to convince him and, for good measure, kept his eyes on the floor. He had vast experience in dealing with people he didn't want to talk to and knew that acknowledging their presence only encouraged them to stay longer. However, Gloria simply sighed and picked up her purse, leaving the manila envelope and the many documents she'd brought on his counter.

“You are a lot like my husband,” she said, walking towards the door. Her tone was not without affection. “I should've expected you to be stubborn.”

“I'm not stubborn.”

“What are you?”

“Uninterested.”

“In your brother?”

“In anything you've shown me. _Please._ Leave,” he said, hoping his voice would sound as frustrated as he felt, and that she hadn't heard the plead that had made its way to his words.

She stopped in front of him and stared until he raised his eyes from the floor. She was tall enough that she could meet his eye level and Gold didn't like that. He wasn't used to people who were not intimidated by him.

“I'm all he has, Mr. Gold,” she said. “Nick has been alone most of his life and I know he doesn't want to think about it any more than you do, but he does have a family. And so do you. All I ask is that you think about it, that is all.”

“Family is overrated, Mrs. Rush,” Gold said, merciless. “Tell your husband he got off easy.”

Gloria frowned, as if she was about to ask, but didn't. Instead, she turned around and walked out of his shop. Before he closed the door, he heard her say, “I've left you my card. Just think about it. I'll be waiting your call.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

The cot he kept in the back was now covered in pages and pages of invasive documents. In the small corner that was left, Belle French sat with her legs crossed at the ankles, the image of femininity and grace were it not for the large hamburger she was clutching with her left hand. Sometimes, she'd nibble on it without taking her eyes away from her reading. How she managed to bite without spilling a single drop of ketchup though, he couldn't say. Gold thought that her examination of the evidence would be nothing but a quick glance but the girl revealed herself to be thorough, leafing through each page with such calm and attention she might as well be back in her bedroom, reading a novel.

However, this was far from being a story. This was reality, at its worst.

“Is this everything they gave you?” she asked, after swallowing a large bite and taking a sip of iced tea.

“It's all that concerns you,” Gold answered.

Belle didn't seem bothered by his dry tone, nor by the fact that he was holding back from her. Upon request, he'd handed over most of the documents Gloria Rush had given him. There was no denying that, whatever government agency had tried to recruit her husband, it had done a good job at looking for dirt. Other than birth certificates and Rush's adoption papers (by George and Linda Rush, not two months after their father had dropped him off at an orphanage), they'd managed to acquire a copy of his tax return, marriage license, and several private emails he'd exchanged with Cora Mills three years prior, when she'd been the Mayor of Storybrooke. But given that those emails hardly covered any official business, he decided that Miss French didn't need to know about them.

“This is quite a story,” Belle said. Her initial shock had washed away with each bit of information she discovered, giving way to an intense curiosity that verged on intrusiveness.

Gold nodded. “Yes.”

“And your father never mentioned _any_ of this to you?”

Gold allowed a moment of silence to hang in the air before snarling, “You mean, did my father ever mention my no-name identical twin brother whom he abandoned when we were only three months old? No, Miss French. I believe a memory like that would have stuck.”

“Right. Stupid question. Sorry. It's just that...” She looked at the papers again, an impressive collection of information. Gloria Rush was right, it was enough to make you paranoid. “It's just overwhelming, that's all.”

From behind his desk, Gold drank in silence without looking at her. Just before he'd told her, “And that was when the crazy woman shoved her husband's driver's license in my face and he looked _exactly_ like me,” he interrupted his tale, claiming, “Fuck it, I need a drink,” and went to fetch a bottle of Scotch from a cabinet. This was his second glass and he didn't feel like stopping anytime soon.

“They even got your x-rays.” She held one to the light. A very broken ankle. She flinched. “Blimey, how did you manage to do _that_?”

“Keep snooping, dearie. There's a police report somewhere in there.”

“I'm not snooping, the government is. I swear, I'll never send another email without encrypting it three times.”

She picked the copy of Nicholas Rush's driver's license again and stared at the picture, even though she'd already spent along time doing just that. Not that Gold hadn't done the same several times since the discovery. It was bizarre, like looking at a car crash – it did nothing except make him nauseous, but he couldn't stop looking.

“You really are very similar. Were it not for the beard-”

“I know.”

“And he's a teacher?”

“Professor, according to his wife.” Gold scoffed. “ _Nerd_.”

Belle giggled, making him turn.

“What?”

“You sound like an older brother.” She finished her hamburger, wiped her mouth with a paper napkin, and began collecting his papers. When she walked to his desk to return them, she brought along the portion of onion rings she'd barely touched. “Drinking on an empty stomach won't help you think clearly.”

“I'm thinking clearly,” he said, taking offense. “I'm thinking _clearer._ ”

“Obviously. I'll just leave these here, then...” She put down the onion rings, leaving them much closer to his side of the desk. Gold ignored the food and continued to drink to fill his empty stomach with alcohol, so she asked, “What is it that you wanted to ask me?”

“Pardon me?”

“When you invited me over.”

“I didn't invite you over. I summoned you.”

“You _summoned_ me?” she repeated, laughing at the word so hard that he had to look at her. “You didn't draw a pentagram on the floor, Mr. Gold. You asked me to come.”

“Yes, and I'm paying good money for your service.”

“And what would this service be?”

Gold stared at her without saying a word.

“Figures,” Belle said, and pulled up a chair to sit at his desk. “So... how about we start with... talking, you know, about how you feel about this whole situation?”

“Oh, no,” he said, interrupting a long sip of whiskey as soon as the question left her lips. “No, no. You're not here to play therapist, dearie. I know where Dr. Hopper's office is.”

“Why am I here, then?”

“Because of _twins_!”

“Okay, Mr. Gold,” she said, trying to be patient. “Why don't you try forming a question? Reading minds is not my strong suit.”

Gold shook his head. “Perhaps I don't have a question. Perhaps I just don't know what to think of all of this.”

“That's understandable. You don't have any other brothers, correct?”

“Why did you waste thirty minutes going over all that paperwork if you were only going to ask me these questions anyway?”

She decided to ignore his rudeness and ask, “Would you like to know what I think of having a sister?”

Gold made a broad, impatient gesture with his hand, as if to say, “Just say your piece. I'll decide whether I like it or not.”

“It's a good thing,” Belle said. “I like that I have someone who shares the same past as me. Someone I can share memories of my mother and of Sydney-”

“That hardly applies to me,” Gold interrupted.

“Yes, I understand. But that doesn't mean you can't have something like that now.”

Gold humphed with stubbornness and swirled the liquor in his glass before swallowing down the rest of it.

“Do you like your sister?” he asked, already filling his glass again.

“Of course I love my sister,” Belle answered, without batting an eye.

“I didn't ask about love. _Love_ is a deceiving emotion.”

“That's not true.”

His glass was emptied in a single large gulp, leaving behind a smirk. “You're such a young girl.”

“I'm twenty five, Mr. Gold,” Belle informed him, making it clear that he'd finally managed to offend her. “I'm old enough not to be called a _girl_ anymore, especially not in such a condescending tone.”

“All I mean is that you'll learn,” he said, reaching for the bottle again. His free hand fumbled through the documents until he could fish out the copy of his father's driver's license. “We can both agree this man is a prick, yes?”

Belle hesitated, staring at the picture of Malcolm Gold then at his son, trying to conceal the shock at being asked that question.

“Well, I couldn't say-”

“He abandoned his second son and didn't even bother giving him a name, Miss French,” Gold told her. “And if you think he did it out of some noble reason, he didn't. He hates responsibility just as much as he hates sobriety. We can both agree that puts him in the 'kind of a prick' spectrum, yes?”

“Yes,” Belle admitted, rather reluctantly. “Yes, if you say so.”

“I do say so. And I _love_ him.” He spat the word out like it was nothing but a bothersome feeling. “It's the blood. And the memories. That one occasion or two when he wasn't too horrible that somehow speak louder than all those other times when he was simply detestable. I can't seem to hate him too much, though I try. I try hard.” He put down the picture and swallowed the rest of his Scotch in a swift movement. It burned down his throat and hit his empty stomach with something akin to relief. “I do try. But that is love for you.” He pointed a finger at her. She watched him without saying a word. “Blood and memories, sometimes a misguided sense of loyalty. But _liking_ is different. It's rational and objective. I don't like my father. He's a burden.”

“I'm sorry,” Belle said, and despite the alcohol affecting his sense, he could tell that her feeling was genuine. She felt sad for him. That girl felt too much. She was going to get that soft heart of hers broken one day.

He filled another glass under her watchful eye.

“You had a lot already Mr. Gold,” she muttered, more a suggestion than a scorning.

Gold ignored her. “Do you think your sister is a burden?”

“No.”

She put so much conviction into that simple word that Gold had to look up. Whatever sorrow she might have felt for him had vanished from her eyes, quickly replaced by a warning to back off. Gold had never cared much for warnings.

“So you like her?” he pushed.

Belle's answer was equally as short, “Yes,” though she now lacked in conviction.

“All the time?”

“I don't have to like her all the time.”

“Right. There's one in every family,” he continued, taking another sip. “Might as well be her.”

“My sister is not a burden,” she said, fiercely.

Gold wondered if she was the eldest of the two. According to what he'd found on the internet, older children tended to take on a more protective role, though he doubted it was the same for twins. Nonetheless, that was how Belle sounded. A protective older sister, ready to go to bat for the little one, no matter that she didn't _always_ like her.

His thoughts, scrambled as they were becoming because of the Scotch, turned to Rush, the stranger who shared his parents, his DNA, and his fucking _face_. He could never be this protective of him, not the way Belle French was of Lacey. He could never allow himself to feel this blind rage that erased all grudges and memories and left only one word in its place: sister.

No one was going to hurt her sister.

He didn't give a fuck if someone hurt his brother.

“Mr. Gold?”

Belle was looking at him, her anger dissipating, leaving a frown in its place as she watched him go quiet.

“I don't care for that man.”

“Your father?”

“Rush. He means nothing.”

“You might feel differently once the alcohol wears off.”

“Why?” he sneered. “Because you have such a _perfect_ relationship with sister dearest?”

Belle was naive enough to allow him twenty seconds to apologize. When he didn't, she got up from her chair and said, “If that was all you wanted, I'm going to go.”

“Right. The family needs you.”

There was such disdain in his words that she snapped back, ready to respond to his rudeness. Gold sat up, alert. If that little girl said something mildly offensive, then he could start a fight. Screaming mindlessly at someone might just be what he needed.

“Call your brother, Mr. Gold,” she told him. “No one deserves to be alone.”

And she exited the shop, leaving nothing behind but the sound of the bell and the feeling in his chest that this was far from finished.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The following morning, when Lacey said, “Gold’s an asshole,” Belle didn’t bother correcting her, which made her sister immediately suspicious.

“What was that?” Lacey asked.

Belle replied with a vague, “What was what?” without looking up from the eggs she was frying, though she knew what Lacey meant.

“Won’t you jump in and defend poor Mr. Gold?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Uhn, because you _always_ do that? You say, _Don’t be mean, Lacey_ , or, _You shouldn’t judge people before you get to know them, Lacey_ ,” she said, mimicking a sickening-sweet tone that sounded nothing like her sister’s demeanor but that never failed to annoy her. “You know, the usual scolding I get for not behaving like a perfect girl scout.”

“I don’t scold you.”

“Yeah, you do!” Lacey said, baffled that Belle would dare claim otherwise. “You scold everybody! Just ask Ruby.”

“I don’t scold everybody, and I don’t behave like a girl scout either, thank you very much.”

“Didn’t say you do.”

“No, you just implied it heavily.”

Lacey examined her sister from her chair. “Not in the best of moods this morning, are we?”

Belle poked her eggs with the spatula, absentmindedly, trying to channel her frustration on something other than her twin sister. That only burst the yolk, ruining what might have become two perfectly fried eggs, and her frustration remained exactly where it was supposed to be: on the sister that had kept her up late by cackling loudly on the phone, and who was now sitting at the kitchen table _mocking_ her for being a decent human being.

“Alrighty, then,” Lacey said, when her sister didn’t answer. “Then why do you say working for Gold was, quote-unquote, _challenging_?”

“Because he’s not an easy person to like.”

“Ha! Amen to that.”

For a moment, Lacey seemed to be done with the subject and watched her sister temper with the stove (“Why the hell isn’t this getting hot?”), while her sparkly nails peeled an orange.

Then, she started laughing. “Oh my god!”

“What?” Belle asked.

“Oh - my - _god_!”

“ _What_?”

“Did he hit on you?”

Belle glared at her. “Say it a little louder, I don’t think dad heard you.”

“But he did, didn’t he? No wonder you’re so...”

When she didn’t finish her sentence, Belle turned around. “What? I’m so what?”

“You know...” Lacey waved her hand at Belle, as if that would be enough of an explanation.

“I don’t know. _What_?”

“Like, he offended your honor, or something.”

“He didn’t do anything, Lacey,” Belle said. “He’s just a bossy jerk who thinks he knows best.”

Lacey laughed again. “And you _don’t_ get along? Are you sure?”

Belle threw her spatula in the sink. The sound was so loud that it wiped the smile off Lacey’s face.

“I’m just joking around, sis,” she said, getting defensive.

“Everything’s a joke to you.”

Lacey stared at her sister. Belle waited for her to take the bait, a long list of arguments coming together in her mind, prepared to be spilled out the moment Lacey said something. She was eager for a fight since the night before and this was going to be it.

Perhaps Lacey was right. By all accounts, she should get along with Mr. Gold just fine. Or perhaps she should punch him in the face, given that this was all his fault. He’d been the one to plant that venomous thought inside her head (“Do you like your sister, dearie?”) and now Belle couldn’t stop mulling it over.

“I’m gonna go have breakfast at Granny’s,” Lacey announced, getting up from her chair.

“I’m making breakfast-”

“Yes, but you’re also sort of a bitch and I don’t want to have a fight before I even had my coffee.” She tilted her head to the side, looking at her frying pan. “Besides, your eggs are burned.”

“What? Shit-”

Belle turned around fast, the smell of it hitting her nose. Her eggs were beynd saving.

Behind her, Lacey sneered. “And people say you’re the clever twin.”

“Well, people say you’re the-”

Lacey slammed the front door before Belle could think of a suiting adjective, though she knew which one would be most fitting to describing her sister: the fun twin. That was what people said. Lacey was the fun twin. The one with an entourage of friends and a busy nightlife. The twin who lived for the now and didn’t have a care in the world. Because she didn’t have to take care of dad, or make sure the flower shop was doing well, or think about her future beyond what she might do on Saturday night.

No, no, worrying was Belle’s responsibility. After all, she was the... what words had she used? The girl scout with a know-it-all attitude.

The clever one.

“What was that?” her father asked, coming into the kitchen just as the sound of the slammed door died.

“Lacey’s not staying for breakfast,” Belle answered, getting rid of the burned eggs.

Maurice sighed. “Isn’t it too early for a disagreement, princess?”

Belle held back her knee-jerk reply (“She started it!”) before she came out sounding like a five-year-old, and instead said, “She was being difficult.”

“Your sister _is_ difficult, Belle. You can’t put a fire out with gasoline,” he said, with usual patience.

Belle busied herself picking the orange peel Lacey had left behind and didn’t answer.

“May I ask what were you fighting about?”

“We weren’t fighting,” Belle said. Then she took a moment to think back on what had happened. “She was being nosy. I didn’t like it.”

Maurice raised an eyebrow. “You’re usually more patient than that.”

“I don’t feel like being patient today.”

Maurice looked at her, surprised by her harsh tone, and Belle lowered her eyes. Maybe Lacey had a point. She wasn’t in the best of moods today.

“Sit down, Belle.”

“I don’t want to have a heart-to-heart now, dad.”

“Oh good,” Maurice said, pushing her to a chair. “Because it’s too early for that too. I’m just going to make us some unburned breakfast while you cool your head.”

Belle smiled at him. Her father gave her a kiss.

“Thank you, dad.”

Maurice fetched a couple of eggs from the fridge and cracked them in a frying pan with one hand - a trick that Lacey could do with her eyes closed, much to Belle’s envy.

“Just promise you’ll sort things out with your sister,” Maurice said, as he cooked.

Belle gave him her automatic reply, “Yes, dad,” and went on to ponder on Mr. Gold’s “you don’t have to like the people you love” philosophy. He might be a bitter jerk, she had to admit that he might have a point.

  
  


*

  
  


On the first of October, Lacey had insisted that they put on Halloween decorations on the flower shop, to which Maurice had objected, as he did every year, because Halloween had nothing to do with flowers and it would be bothersome to take them down once the season was over. And, as it went every year, Lacey put up her beloved decorations anyway. By now, her father should’ve known to save his breath. Carved pumpkins, paper bats, plastic skulls, the whole nine yards. She’d even made special Halloween bouquets with dead flowers, which Belle thought was a stroke of genius, but refused to say it out loud.

They were now almost done with the first week of November, though, and she hadn’t taken them down, despite the fact that Maurice had asked her to, twice. Belle had promised herself that she wouldn’t be the one to do it, not this year, no matter how much Lacey begged her for help. But then Gold came by to collect rent and the Halloween decorations became a very convenient excuse to go wait outside and not having to look at him.

Lacey dared to ask, “Do you want some help?” and though Belle felt like shouting, “Wha- _You_ put them up! They were _your_ idea! _Of course_ I want you to help me! Why do we have to go through this every year, Lacey!” she decided against it. Lacey would just take the opportunity to tease her about Gold and imply once again that he must be sweet on her. She’d tuned it down after the first couple of days, but she was sure to pick it up again.

Five minutes later, Gold walked out with the rent in his pocket. Belle ignored him and he seemed ready to return the favor, but after walking a couple of steps in the opposite direction, he turned around and told her, “I have a proposition for you.”

Belle stopped halfway through unsticking a paper bat from the window. Gold was looking at her, but she still wasn’t sure he was addressing her. First, he hadn’t said “Hello!” or anything of the sort. Second, he hadn’t bothered with an apology. He didn’t even have the decency of sounding ashamed of his behavior. Belle was about to take a leaf from Lacey’s book and tell Gold where he could shove his proposition, when her father opened the front door.

“Did you forget something?” he asked Gold, his voice as unfriendly as it could be.

“I’m talking to your daughter,” Gold replied, in that stubborn way of his.

“I can see that, Gold. But given that you have no business with her-”

“It’s fine, dad,” Belle said. “It’s about those books again.”

“Indeed,” Gold agreed, without batting an eye. “Do you object to that?”

Maurice leaned on the door, staring at Gold like he wanted to scare him away with a look. “Very well. Talk!”

Belle crumbled the paper bat into a ball. He’d never do that for Lacey, or rather, he'd never assume that Lacey needed protection. He knew that her sister could hold her own with anyone, but Belle was a different situation. She was frail and naive and someone better watch over her.

“Dad, do you mind?” she asked, verging on impatience.

Maurice looked at the both of them, then grumbled and walked back inside, leaving the door open, just in case.

Belle stepped past Gold to close the door. Lacey was peeking over her dead flowers arrangements.

Gold said, “Your father is quite-”

“I think you talked about my family enough,” Belle said.

She returned to the window to pick the rest of the paper bats. Lacey had outdone herself that year, it was surprising she'd had the willpower to put all of those up.

Gold examined her face. “I sense that you're upset.”

“I'm not upset,” Belle said. “I'm busy. You know, with my burden of a sister. She's such a handful.”

To her surprise, Gold chuckled. When she looked at him, he explained, “And me thinking you were the nice twin.”

“The whole good twin, evil twin thing is nothing but a myth. I could have told you that last time we talked, if you hadn't behaved like a jerk.” She eyed him from head to toe. “Though, if the myth _were_ true, I think it's clear which one you are.”

“I don't know. I heard the other one was involved in some shady deal with the government.”

Belle stopped and narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you... trying to make a joke?”

“It's no joke,” he said, dead-serious. “I have documents to prove it.”

“Well, you're still the jerk twin.”

Belle picked her trash bag and moved over to the other window, where orange letters spelled CREEPY HALLOWEEN.

“Not that I don’t hold grudges,” Gold conceded, following her. “In fact, I’m terribly good at it. But you might want to tune yours down a notch.”

Belle snapped around. “Excuse me?”

“I'd like to make a deal.”

“And I’d like to get an apology, but it seems that-”

“It involves a plane ticket.”

Belle closed her mouth fast.

“I see I've captured your attention.”

“What do you want?”

Gold folded his hands over his cane. “As per your advice, I've decided to meet _the other one_.”

Belle's eyebrows shot up. That was a surprise.

“I've called Mrs. Rush,” he continued, “and we will sit down for dinner this Friday to talk this through.”

“I didn't think you'd actually take my advice.”

“Why not? It was rather reasonable.”

“Yes, that's why I didn't think you'd take it.”

Belle wasn't sure, but she could've swore Gold was doing his best to repress a smile.

“No one’s ever accused me of being unreasonable,” he said, though his voice was lighter than before.

“I find that hard to believe,” Belle retorted. “Are you here because you finally made up your mind as to what you wanted to ask me?”

“I was here to ask you to come to California.”

“California?” Belle repeated.

“Yes. Berkley, to be more precise.”

“You want me to come with you?”

“I did, but if you don't want-”

“To meet your family?”

“Not _family_ ,” he corrected her. “Brother.”

“Why do you need me to come along?”

Gold lowered his eyes and didn’t answer.

Belle softened. “Oh... you don't want to go alone. I see.”

“No,” he corrected her, sharply. “I don’t want to be in a disadvantage.”

She couldn't help but laugh. “Mr. Gold, this isn't going to be a battlefield. Unless it's Thanksgiving or Christmas, family dinners tend to go smoothly.”

“He's got his wife and they both read that paperwork on me. I would feel more comfortable if I had someone on my side, and as it happens, you're the only one who's aware of the situation.”

“But I don't feel inclined to being on your side, given that the last time you _summoned_ me you got drunk and offended my sister.”

“I wouldn't call that drunk.”

“You're just always that mean?”

He rolled his eyes. “I'll pay for your trip to California.”

“Even so-”

“You'll have to come to dinner on Friday, and then you can have the entire weekend to yourself.”

Belle seemed to consider. “And my own room?”

“Wha- Yes! Of course you get your own room!” he said, sounding offended that she'd suggest otherwise. “One dinner, and then you can hop on a bus and tour at your heart's content.”

Belle waited.

“Fine!” he said, beginning to sound frustrated. “Three hundred, but that's not up for negotiation.”

“I was expecting an apology, not your wallet.”

“So you don't want the money?”

Belle didn't answer.

“Then let's leave it at that.” He peeked inside the shop. “Your dad looks very suspicious. You better go give him an excuse before he walks out with a shotgun.”

  
  


 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Rush could only remember feeling this way once before: when Gloria's cancer had gone into remission. The doctor's announcement had filled him with a sense of relief that felt false and fragile, ready to be shattered at any moment, and though he put on a brave face as she cried tears of joy, he'd spent the better part of the next two years waiting for the bad news to be dropped on him without warning.

For the last three months, he'd been expecting _the other one_ to be dropped on him just as unexpectedly, and he feared that would be the way he'd live his life from there on. But just as his students left the classroom in murmurs, aching for the weekend, Rush was overcome by a feeling of normalcy that was very much welcomed. Perhaps the threat was gone and he could go back to the life he used to have. One that didn't include the knowledge of a secret twin on the other side of the country, hovering over his head like a dark cloud.

It hadn't been Dr. Jackson's intention to turn his world upside down, and the man did give him a fair warning: if there was anything in his past that he wasn't proud of, now was the moment to come clean. This program was, in his own words, _merciless_ when it came to background checks. If there was an unsavory association in his past that he wasn't proud of, a sickness he was trying to keep hidden, or even an infidelity on his wife's part that she hadn't mentioned, this was the moment to go home and have those difficult conversations. He'd seen a fair share of men and women heartbroken by secrets before.

At the time, Rush hadn't been worried. His life had been rather dull up until that moment, regardless of its misfortunes, and there was nothing they could tell him about Gloria that he didn't already know. At worst, they'd uncover something about his biological parents, and George and Linda Rush had already filled him in on everything there was to know about the subject of his progeny: he was an unwanted bastard whose mother bled to death and whose father was a good for nothing vagabond. The words had stung once, but Rush had long since made his peace with that.

In the end, his application had been denied.

“Nothing to do with your qualifications,” Dr. Jackson assured him, though that hadn't even crossed Rush's mind. “But you said in your interview that you're not willing to relocate without your wife and that would not be possible.”

“I think that settles it, then.”

Jackson still tried to throw money at the issue, offering some very impressive figures that gave him pause, but were ultimately rejected. Had this been a short-term assignment, he could have been persuaded, but moving away from Gloria indefinitely was not something he could be bribed to do.

“You're a difficult man, Dr. Rush,” Jackson sighed, defeated.

“My wife has told me so, many times.”

Jackson smiled at him but made no mention of getting up from his chair.

“I won't change my mind, Dr. Jackson,” Rush told him

“Yes, I know. To be honest, I didn't just come to give you the news in person.” Off his briefcase came a manila envelope, with the announcement: “There's something I think you should know about your family.”

His first thoughts were of Gloria, and the many heartbreaking things Jackson could be holding in his hand. It couldn't be the cancer, she'd have told him about that. A lost child? An infidelity? He hadn't even considered the _possibility_ of it until that moment. Rush was about to say that he didn't want to know when the other man added, “Your _biological_ family, that is.”

The manila envelope was handed over. Rush handled it with caution.

“I wouldn't usually share this, especially since you said you didn't care for your parents' information,” Jackson said, no judgment in his voice, which was a relief. As far as Rush was concerned, there was no question more draining than, “But what about your _real_ parents?”

“Then why am I getting this?” he asked, without opening the envelope. His mind rushed even faster than it usually did, going through a myriad of possibilities in the blink of an eye, none of them good. It had to be a disease, that was the only logical explanation. In a few seconds, Jackson would tell him all about it, and then he'd have to sit Gloria down and tell her that they were going to go through all of it again.

She wouldn't be able to take it. She didn't deserve this.

“You're getting this because I don't think you're aware that you have a brother,” Jackson explained.

And Rush was glad that was all there was to it. He wasn't _aware_ of it, but he'd thought about it in the past, and just like “mother” and “father”, “sibling” was a word he didn't dwell on anymore. It meant nothing to him.

He extended the manila envelope back. “I really have no interest, Dr. Jackson, but thank you anyway.”

Jackson didn't take the envelope.

“If the situation were different,” he said, looking guilty that he had to insist, “I'd just leave it at that, but this is...”

Rush watched him as he struggled with his words.

“I'm just surprised no one has ever told you,” he explained. “You have the right to know.”

There was still a moment when Rush resisted, his mouth opening to tell the other man that he wanted to know nothing about his biological family, and that they'd given up the right to his interest a long time ago. However, there was such concern in Jackson's voice that he'd given in and opened the manila envelope.

A picture of his own face greeted him, tagged with the last name of another man.

As much as he hated to admit it, Jackson had a point. A twin brother was definitely the kind of information he should have been given years before. Perhaps then he'd have reacted to it with the same amount of disinterest that his biological parents provoked in him. Instead, he devoured all those documents he had vowed to ignore, like a man picking a scab.

Nicholas Gold, a man who'd shared his face and even his first name for over forty years, and yet seemed to be as unaware of his presence as Rush had been of his. He lived in Maine, having relocated to the States ten years before. Gold hadn't brought a wife with him, though, only a small son. He worked with real estate, owned a pawnshop, and, judging by the handful of pictures Jackson had given him, he had a preference for three-piece suits and a clean-shaved face.

The information went as far back as infancy, revealing things about his – _their_ parents Rush would've ignored otherwise. Mother died at childbirth, as Linda had so bluntly informed him, but father hadn't been as averse to parenting as it had been implied. Malcolm Gold had given parenting a try for three months, but then decided to drop his second son at an orphanage. If the birth certificate was to be trusted, he hadn't been given a first name during all that time. It was only after George and Linda brought him home that he received the name Nicholas Rush.

It wouldn't have surprised him to find out that Malcolm dropped the first twin at another orphanage, but it seemed that he'd stuck around for at least ten years to raise Nicholas Gold. Eventually, he gave his favorite twin up to an elderly aunt who lived in London and went back to Glasgow to gamble and cause mayhem in pubs, according to police records. What their relationship was like during the following years Rush couldn't say, but they were still in contact and exchanged phone calls every other month or so.

What did they talk about during those calls? There weren't that many, but it was still a lot more than he'd ever do for his own father. The moment he got his scholarship, Rush disappeared from George and Linda's lives without looking back and didn't bother to come to their funeral when they passed away. Gold, apparently, didn't have as much resentment towards his old man.

By the time Gloria got home, Rush had spread the documents and pictures on the floor of his study and was staring at them in disbelief, kneeling at the center of it as his eyes darted left to right, too overwhelmed to know where to start and where to stop, so he took everything in at once, the way numbers sometimes came to him. Except that numbers were easy to order and make sense out of, this was most certainly not. It made him dizzy. A brother, a father, even a nephew, all living in the same country as him, blissfully unaware of his existence, while he had to bear the weight of all this knowledge.

Right in front of him, he'd laid the birth certificate, his gaze always coming back to that empty box where his name was supposed to be. Malcolm Gold couldn't be bothered to give him that much.

Gloria joined him in the eye of the hurricane, as baffled as he was.

“They should have told you,” she said, eyeing the pictures of George and Linda attached to their respective files with a reprimand in her eyes. Rush would bet that they didn't know, though. They'd never shied away from hurting his feelings once the drinking started, and that seemed like the perfect ammunition.

Gloria continued to glare at their pictures, and any other day, Rush would have commented, “Oh, how _English_ you look, with such stern eyes!” That night, he kept his mouth shut, a hand in front of it for good measure. There was something trying to crawl up his throat and he wasn't sure if it was bile or a scream but he didn't take his chances.

It wasn't until Gloria asked, gentle, the way she always was with him, “Do you know what you want to do now?” that something snapped into place inside his mind and Rush started collecting the papers again.

“What are you doing, Nick?” she asked, as his hands worked frantically to pile everything.

“I want this out of our house,” he said, resolute.

“Nick, I know this is a lot to-”

“I am calm,” he told her. It was not the question she'd asked, but he'd prepared that answer regardless, might as well use it. “I am rational and I know what I'm doing. I don't want to deal with this.”

“Right, darling, just-” She struggled with his hands to pull the papers away before he had the chance to rip them to pieces. “Just let me get this for you.”

Rush didn't let go of the papers.

“I don't want to think about it anymore,” he said.

Gloria nodded. “Yes, I know. So let me get these out of the way.”

“You think I'm going to change my mind.”

“I just want to-”

“I'm not going to change my mind, Gloria. This isn't the road to a tearful reunion. I've given up these people long before I even met you.”

“And I've always respected that,” she reminded him, which was what made him finally let go and allow her to collect the documents herself. Once she'd piled all there was, she said, “I'll put this where you won't have to think about it.”

Rush thought of having that hidden away in their attic, like a shameful secret he didn't want to look at everyday, but would always be there, lumbering in a dark corner. The same dark corner where he'd once hid the word “orphan”, where it gnawed at his thoughts without being noticed, until there was nothing but unanswered questions left. Those papers would probably lead to the same heartbreak.

“I need this gone, Gloria,” he said, and how fitting that he was still on his knees because his voice was pleading, as his wife towered over him with a detailed recount of his past in her hands.

“Nick-” she began, and Rush could hear in his name alone that she was about to argue in that gentle way of hers and if she did, she was going to win.

So he stopped her before she had the chance. “I've been through this before and I have no intention to go through it again.”

She opened her mouth. And then closed it.

“You're right, this is your decision. I'll get rid of it.”

And just like that, she turned on her heels and left him to take a deep breath.

It wasn't enough to have those papers gone. It wasn't even enough to see them thrown into their bin and then taken away by a garbage truck. The awareness of them remained. That man hovered above his head, a part of his past he didn't want to deal with but couldn't stop thinking about.

Questions that he'd long given up trying to find answers to ( _Why would anyone give me up?_ ) changed into more complicated ones ( _Why me and not him?_ ), and though he refused to ponder on them, they were still in the back of his mind, along with that picture of Nicholas Gold, shaved and suited and so very serious.

“He must have been the perfect son,” he told Gloria, after spending five days in taciturn silence.

“What?” she asked, looking up from the magazine article she'd been trying to distract him with.

“The other one. Gold. He must have been the perfect son.”

“Why do you say that?”

Rush thought about it. He had no proof of it. It was just a feeling.

“He still talks to his father,” he said. “That means they're close.”

“They might be.”

Rush sank against the back of the couch and looked at the ceiling, searching for a problem to concentrate on. A leak, a crack, a cobweb. However, there was nothing demanding his immediate attention.

“You know,” Gloria said, very carefully, “you were only three months old when he gave you away-”

“I know. I did nothing wrong. It had nothing to do with the man I am, but the man my father was,” he recited, a mantra he'd started repeating when he was a teenager and that he'd do good to remember now.

“It's a good thing that you know that.”

He lolled his head to the side to look at her. “I _know_ that, but I've been having a hard time _believing_ it.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm an idiot.”

Gloria didn't look away and didn't say a word.

Rush sighed. “Because I thought my father didn't want children. I spent a very long time trying to come to terms with that. And now I find out that he did, in fact, want children. He just didn't want _me_.”

Gloria thought about it for a moment, then said, “I know you don't want to hear this, but judging from what we've learned, it's possible that you dodged a bullet.”

She had a point. Malcolm Gold seemed to have spent most of is life drinking and gambling his money away. In that sense, he wasn't much worse than George Rush, and there was no telling what he did to the other one once the drinking began. But Rush had a hard time believing his brother had it as rough as he did.

“If you talked to him, would that help you get closure?” Gloria suggested.

Rush narrowed his eyes at her. “You told me you threw those papers away.”

“I did! I did. But we still have his name. And that city he lives in, it's a small town really. I googled it. If you wanted to-”

“No,” he said, looking away. “No, this is pointless.”

She tried, “He's family, you know.”

“ _You're_ family. He's a stranger. One that I shouldn't think about. It'll do me no good.”

Gloria seemed ready to disagree with him, which didn't surprise him one bit. Despite being together for over twenty years, there were still some things that she would never understand, and this was one of them. In Gloria's mind, shaped by a loving father whose only objection to her had been her choice of husband, all parents were loving and all siblings were there for you. That he'd found a family after years of being alone probably seemed like a blessing to her.

However, if the years hadn't taught her to agree with him, at least they'd taught her when her husband just wanted to be left alone, so she limited herself to giving him a kiss on the forehead and lie on the couch with him for a while. Rush loved her for moments like these, when she gave him exactly what he needed because she knew him so well.

Gloria didn't bring the other one up after that, which was probably why he managed to go the next three months with his sanity more or less intact. Had she insisted on the subject, he might've ended up much worse than just battling insomnia and secretly smoking on his way home – something Gloria had probably sniffed on him already, but was kind enough not to scold him for.

Today was the first day since this whole ordeal began that he didn't crave a cigarette, though. He had barely thought of the other one since class ended and all he wanted was to go home to the only family he knew and loved. If he managed to have more days like this from now on, Rush was sure that, slowly, life would go back to the way it used to be.

 

*

 

Gloria was playing her violin when he arrived, standing in front of her favorite window. The acoustic was much better in her study, but Rush could tell she wasn't practicing just by her choice of song. Vivaldi's _The Four Seasons_. When she first started her career, going to every audition she could find and playing in weddings to meet the monthly bills without having to rely on her family's money, she had played it so many times she knew it by heart and could do it backwards. That was her _thinking_ song.

Rush used to think that silence was the only way to put his thoughts in order, but there was nothing quite as beautiful as the sounds Gloria could make. He missed her noise so much when she was gone, from her playing to the sound of her morning routine in the bathroom. The running water, the many bottles of lotion and cosmetics being moved around, the eventual humming of a song, it was all a familiar melody that Rush could no longer live without. The violin was his favorite, though. There was no doubt that his wife was the best in her field, just as much as he was the best in his.

She spotted his reflection on the window glass and arched her eyebrows slightly to indicated that she'd seen him. Rush waved but knew better than to interrupt. He put down his keys, hung his coat, and fetched a couple of beers from the fridge. No better way to finish a Friday at home.

Only when Gloria put down the violin did he say, “Don't you play enough with the orchestra?”

“It's never enough,” she said, coming to the couch and taking the beer he was offering.

“What a dedicated woman.”

“I'll drink to that.”

She clinked her bottle on his.

“What's worrying you?”

Gloria shrugged. “Who says I'm worried?”

“That was _Spring_. You don't play _Spring_ unless you want some background noise.”

Another shrug. “I just felt like it.”

“That never happens.”

Gloria sipped, clearly buying for time.

“I don't think I did my best in New York,” she said.

“Nonsense, I saw the YouTube clips. You were perfect.”

“No, I could read the audience. They were not impressed with my solo. At all.”

“The audience is tone-deaf, then. I thought you played beautifully.”

She gave him a smile. “You're looking good tonight.”

“I feel good. Close to normal.”

“I'm glad to hear it.”

Gloria reached for her beer. She'd pulled her hair up in a bun and Rush felt like reaching out and pulling it free, just to tease her. He settled for rubbing the small of her back. When she leaned back on the couch, he didn't move his hand.

“We should indulge tonight.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Is that how the kids are calling it these days?”

“I was going to suggest pizza, but I do like where your mind is going.”

“Pizza sounds good, too.”

The hand caught between her body and the couch snaked around her waist and pulled her closer.

“No cooking, no dishes,” Rush said. “Leaves time for other indulgences.”

Gloria leaned closer. “You've been giving me lots of attention lately.”

“That's because I missed you.”

“I should travel more often,” Gloria said and Rush made a face, making her laugh. “Though I think you'll get tired of me eventually, and then you'll be begging the New York Philharmonic to invite me back for another weekend.”

“They'll have to make do with their mediocre players. I'm not getting tired of you anytime soon.”

“Just wait until I start nagging you to eat properly and put away your tiny notebooks.”

“I missed your nagging.”

“Well, I missed your tiny notebooks. Even though they're _everywhere_ -”

Rush knew where she was going, so he silenced her with a kiss.

 

*

 

“Most men get tired of their wives around the seventh year of marriage.”

“That's not true.”

“It is. I've read it somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere. They had graphs and things like that.”

“Oh, I didn't know they had _graphs_.”

Gloria poked his ribs, making him squirm and look away from his cellphone for just a second.

“Whoever came up with that, I bet he cheats on his wife,” Rush said.

“The point stands.”

“What was your point?”

“That I have a wonderful husband.”

Gloria sat up to give him a kiss and then settled on the crook of his neck to look at the cellphone screen.

“Why are you looking at the menu?”

“I'm choosing.”

“Why? We always get the same.”

“Thought we might try something new.”

“You always say that, Nick, and we always get pepperoni. The most unimaginative of flavors.”

“Not tonight. Tonight, we're trying something new.”

Gloria stretched. “Whatever you say. Just stray away from pineapple and you can get anything you want.”

“Okay.”

“And no mushroom.”

He stopped scrolling. “Gloria, I _remember_ that you are allergic to mushrooms.”

She laughed. “You'd forget.”

“I would not!”

“Yes, you would. You forget things like that. It's rather endearing.”

She slipped out of the bed.

“It's not like you remember my allergies-”

“Aspirin. And that sunscreen we bought in Ibiza. Almost ruined our vacation.”

Rush decided that was not a discussion he could win, so he allowed her to disappear into the bathroom without another argument.

He wondered if the other one had the same allergies, which was a ridiculous question since they shared the same DNA. What would Gold get on his pizza? Did he even like pizza at all? He was so serious in all of his pictures that it wouldn't surprise Rush one bit to find out that he was a gluten free freak who never let his child eat candy for fear of ruining his teeth. He scavenged the menu. What would Gold hate the most? With that in mind, he placed his order.

Gloria emerged from the shower ten minutes later, wearing a robe and with her hair already up again.

“Chicken breast and a four cheese blend with red pepper,” he informed her.

“Not a bad choice.”

“And dark chocolate with M&M's.”

Gloria stared at him. “How unexpected.”

“Not on the same pizza. It's a... dessert pizza, thing.”

She shook her head. “ _America_!”

“I know, but I thought, in for a penny-”

“Yes, yes, I'll dive into hell with you.”

The doorbell rang. Rush consulted the alarm clock by the bed.

“Already?”

“Will you get that?”

He rolled his shoulders against the headboard. If she were to go downstairs, he could pop into the shower quickly and be ready for dinner in five minutes.

“You're more dressed than I am at the moment.”

“Granted.”

She dropped her robe to the floor.

Rush sighed. “I'll go if you promise to stay like this until I get back.”

“Then hurry back.”

Rush picked up his jeans and shirt from the floor and ran downstairs. Having pizza in bed was definitely something the other one wouldn't do. To be honest, he wasn't even sure he could convince Gloria – she was so obsessed with cleanliness she'd be feeling the crumbs for a week, even if they changed the sheets – but he was going to give it his best try.

He opened the door with the money in hand not to waste time, but froze when he realized there was no delivery kid on his porch, but rather the last person he wanted to see. There he was. His clean-shaved face, the three-piece suit, the lack of a smile. Just when Rush had fooled himself into believing that things could ever be normal again, Gold did exactly what he'd feared from the beginning: he appeared when least expected, catching him off guard and leaving him with no reaction.

Gold stared into Rush's eyes with just as much shock as Rush himself was feeling, but the shock was quickly replaced by an understanding of what had happened. It wasn't a difficult leap to make, there was only one way this man could be standing in front of him right now, aware of their situation as well as of his fucking home address.

Suddenly, the thought of his very beautiful, very talented, and very _treacherous_ wife filled him with rage.

Someone – a girl, a twenty-something brunette who was standing by Gold's side, looked at his brother with daggers shooting from her eyes. She all but shouted, “You didn't call them first?! You said you called them first! Are you kidding-”

Rush didn't wait for Gold to answer. Without thinking of neighbors, or just how crazy it'd make him look, he turned his face upstairs and screamed, “ _Gloria_!” at the top of his lungs.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

“ _I cannot believe you did this_!” came Rush's roaring voice from the second floor.

Belle, sitting on the opposite end of the couch, as far away from him as possible, seemed to stiffen. She looked to Gold like she wanted to be anywhere but caught in the middle of his sort-of-family drama.

“ _How could you do this, Gloria? I told you I wanted this over with!_ ”

“Seems like she never came clean about seeing me,” Gold commented, allowing himself to smirk.

Belle turned to look at him, absolutely baffled.

“What?”

“You lied to me!” Belle shrieked. “You told me you called and that we were invited to dinner!”

“I don't see how that changes things for you.”

“I thought I was coming to an awkward family dinner to help you through this difficult time. Instead, you dropped me in the middle of a minefield.”

“I wouldn't worry about dinner so much, Miss French. Judging by Mr. Rush's reaction, I don't think we're invited, after all.”

“Yes, and whose fault is that?”

“I wasn't the one who came looking for trouble, in case you've forgotten. She did.”

He pointed a fingers upstairs, where a female voice was muttering tearful apologies.

“I should've guessed,” Belle said.

“Should've guessed what?”

“That you're so petty and bitter that all you wanted was to cause mayhem, then go back to the hotel and have a margarita by the pool.”

With that, Belle crossed her arms and turned her face away, discouraging him from continuing the conversation. Not that Gold felt like talking at all. He knew that she had a point. He'd left Storybrooke with payback in mind. It caused him a sadistic pleasure to know that he could come into Nicholas and Gloria Rush's lives without warning and turn their worlds upside down, just like they'd done to him. But he'd been short-sighted. He didn't allow himself to think what might happen next.

The moment Rush opened the door, he knew the pettiness of his actions wasn't worth the turmoil he experienced upon seeing his brother there, right in front of him. His blood had run cold and he almost turned around and ran the other way. The only thing that kept him in place was a very furious Belle, who'd surely chase him down on two good legs that his cane could not outrun, and the fact that Rush started screaming for his wife.

Gloria showed up at the top of the stairs, wrapped in a bathrobe, and started coming down in quick steps to see what had caused her husband to start screaming like a crazy person. When she was close enough to see who was at their front door, however, the blood drained from her face.

“Can you explain this?” Rush demanded, indicating the other man with a gesture.

After a moment of silence, her jaw slack and her body frozen in the middle of the stairs, Gloria said, “Nick, I didn't know-”

Rush didn't give her the chance. “You are _unbelievable_!”

He'd stormed up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door so loudly Gold could swear he felt the walls tremble.

He'd dared think that was it. He could leave now. But then Gloria had said, “What _the hell_ do you think you're doing?”

“I'm so sorry, Mrs. Rush,” Belle had said, jumping in front of him. “We didn't want to cause any-”

“Who are you?”

“I'm Belle.”

Gloria looked like she was about to ask, but changed her mind.

“Whoever the hell you are, just sit over there.”

She pointed at the living room. Belle took a hold of Gold's arm and dragged him inside before he had the chance to escape, mumbling, “Yes, of course, we are so very sorry, so very, _very_ sorry.”

And now, he was trapped in Rush's home while he berated his wife on the second floor.

Above their heads, someone either threw or kicked something, making Belle shudder. He doubted anyone raised their voices or threw things in her house. It must not be easy for her to stay with him, but she didn't make a mention to get up. The girl had her faults, but Gold couldn't deny she was brave.

“Do you think they're okay?” she asked.

“They're fine.”

“How do you know?”

Gold didn't answer. He'd spent the last ten minutes analyzing their living room. Everything was so clean there didn't seem to be a speck of dust on any surface. Gloria had said Rush was a college professor, and they seemed to be well-off, with a beautiful house in a good neighborhood, much like his own – if he ever drew the curtains to allow some light in and stopped cluttering every surface with his trinkets.

What had caught his eye, though, were the pictures. They seemed to be everywhere, and most of them depicted a happy, affectionate couple throughout the years. The wedding picture, unsurprisingly, had a place of honor on a shelf, and judging by their youthful faces, they couldn't be older than thirty. There were also a handful of images of Gloria by herself, almost always playing the violin in different concert halls, and only a couple of Nicholas Rush. The contrast between the man who stood alone and the one who was holding on to his wife was undeniable. He smiled more with her. Being near her seemed to bring him to life.

Gold knew they would be fine because he knew all about the hardships of marital life and he knew what an unhappy marriage looked like. It wasn't like this. No one endured another person for twenty years, looking this revoltingly happy, without learning how to communicate and work through difficult moments like this.

“They're fine,” he insisted. “Trust me.”

“Forgive me if I don't.”

Gold got up. “Fine. Take your own cab back to the-”

“Where are you going?”

“To the hotel. They're clearly busy.”

“Yes! Because _you_ ratted his wife out and probably ruined their marriage!”

“You give me too much credit. Are you coming or n-”

“You're not going anywhere.”

Gold stared at her. “Excuse me?”

“You're going to sit your arse down and quit being a jerk.”

“Miss French, in case you haven't noticed, they're going to kick us out either way-”

“They'd be well within their rights to do so. But since you came here uninvited, the very least I expect you to do is sit down and wait while they decide what they want to do with us.”

“Why would I?”

“Because my friend Ariel is a reporter for the Mirror.”

The threat wiped the confidence from his face.

He said, “You wouldn't dare.”

“Wouldn't I?” she asked, looking smug. “Walk out that door and see what happens.”

Gold's mouth twitched in an angry snarl and he went as far as to point his cane to her chest, ready to counter with a threat of his own. Something truly horrible, along the lines of eviction. However, nothing was truly as horrible as the thought of having his private life on the lips of every person in Storybrooke.

He sat back down and crossed his arms like a petulant child.

“You are _definitely_ not the nice twin.”

 

*

 

Gloria climbed up the stairs two steps at a time, holding tightly to her robe so it wouldn't slip away. She had no idea how to explain herself to her husband but, as luck would have it, Rush didn't give her the chance to say a word. As soon as the bedroom door closed behind her, he shoved an accusing finger to her face.

“You went to him behind my back!”

“Yes,” she said, her voice weak.

“I know that you're upset-”

“How could you do this, Gloria?”

“I know-”

“I told you I wanted this over with!”

“I know, I wasn't trying to-”

“ _I don't care what you were trying to do_!” he said, managing to project his voice even louder. “ _You had no right_!”

Gloria stammered an apology that was barely audible. From the beginning, she knew that he'd react badly to learning what she'd done, but she wasn't used to being on the receiving end of his temper. His brother, that absolute _git_ , had made things much worse than they had to be.

“You're right, you're absolutely right, Nicholas,” she said. “This wasn't what I had in mind-”

“Did you invite him over?” he asked.

“No, I asked him to call me-”

“When?”

“When I was in New York. But I wasn't-”

“Is that why you went to New York?”

Gloria stared at him. “No, of course not. I just...”

She trailed off, expecting an interruption, but Rush continued to be silent.

“I saw an opportunity and I took it. All I wanted was to see him,” she explained. “To know that it was all true.”

“And then what did you do?” he asked, his voice demanding and cold.

“I showed him the evidence.”

“You told me you were going to throw those papers away.”

“I did!”

Rush watched her, unconvinced.

“Yours,” she added. “I kept his.”

“Wow, lies on top of lies. You've really outdone yourself this time, _sweetheart_.”

He punctuated the term of affection by kicking his nightstand. The lamp on top of it tumbled so loudly on the carpet Gloria thought it'd break into pieces – and yet, it was the contempt with which he uttered that word that truly broke her heart and filled her with fear. He wasn't just angry, he _hated_ her for what she'd done.

“How _exactly_ did you think this was going to go, Gloria?” Rush said, as her eyes started to water. “Did you think you could come home with that man in tow and that everything would be perfectly fine?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but closed it quickly.

“No,” she said. “No, I knew you'd be mad at me for doing this, but I had to do it nonetheless.”

“Why?”

“Because you were miserable, Nicholas!” she cried, tears finally breaking free and rolling down her cheeks. “You barely looked me in the eye for two months. You didn't sleep. You were smoking again-”

“Yes, since we're at it...”

Rush picked his jacket from the floor and produced a pack of cigarettes from one of its pockets.

“Good,” she said, rubbing her eyes and trying to calm down. “Good, can I bum one-”

“You cannot.”

Gloria slumped at that but didn't insist. Rush shoved a cigarette between his lips, lit it and took a long drag. He tapped the ashes inside a glass of water and then looked at her, ready to start the fight all over again. However, she must have looked so sad and pathetic in her bathrobe and tears that he didn't have the heart to continue screaming. Instead, he threw the pack to her and allowed her time to light one of her own.

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

His voice was still tense and when she moved closer to return the pack, he raised his hands, silently asking her to back off, which she did, but Gloria could feel he was offering her a chance to explain herself, so she took it.

“You were just in so much pain, Nick,” she said. “I couldn't bare to see it.”

“It's my right to be in pain, Gloria,” he said, controlled but undeniably furious.

“Of course it is-”

“I got upsetting news and I needed time. I had to grieve this. I'm sorry you got tired of having a sad husband.”

“I wasn't tired of you!” she stopped him, sounding offended for the first time. “I was worried! I didn't know what to do to help you and you wouldn't talk to me-”

“Yes, and you know what?” he asked, pointing what was left of his cigarette at her. “I've never been more glad that I didn't, because you clearly don't understand this.”

“I just wanted you to explain this to me-”

“I don't _have_ to explain this to you!” he said, voice rising in volume again. “This is my pain and my life and you don't get to decide how I'm supposed to handle it. I don't go into your support group and tell you how to cope with remission, do I?”

In a heartbeat, Gloria saw his eyes go from fierce to still as something akin to guilt flashed on his face. No matter how angry he was, there were still certain things he knew he shouldn't use as leverage. Yet, Gloria didn't say anything. It stung, she couldn't say that it didn't, just the words “cancer” and “remission” were enough to set her on the edge, but she knew that, if she took his bait, that fight would escalate into something much worse and things were already bad enough as they were.

Rush turned his back on her under the excuse of dropping the cigarette butt in the glass of water and didn't look her in the eye when he turned back, his hand extended.

“Gimme the pack back, I need another one.”

She handed it over and was glad to see that he wasn't walking away anymore, even if he was still avoiding her eyes.

When she spoke, her voice was soothing. “I understand what you're saying, and you have a point. But when I told you I couldn't go through chemo another day, you still dragged me to it and you held my hand because you knew I wasn't making a good decision.”

He growled, but didn't say anything.

“I was scared that you were letting fear and pain cloud your judgment, Nick. That was all.”

Rush grumbled behind his cigarette.

“Pardon me?”

“I said I knew that would come back and bite me in the arse someday.”

Gloria gave him the tiniest smile.

“You should have told me when you got back,” he said.

“Honestly, he was so uninterested when we talked I didn't think it'd ever come to it. I didn't want to get your hopes up.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow at her.

“I may have also wanted to save my own arse.”

“Figures.”

Gloria dropped the remains of her cigarette in the glass.

Rush asked, “What is he doing here, then?”

“I don't know. I suppose he's more of a... pull off the bandaid quickly kind of person.”

 _Whereas you'd rather pick at your wounds until they bleed_ , she didn't add.

“How is he?”

Gloria thought about it. “An arsehole, if I'm honest.”

“And yet you wanted me to meet him.”

“I just want you to get closure.”

He paced the room, cigarette in hand. Then, “I don't like this.”

“Yes, but-”

“But there's no way I'm going back to normal now that he's here.”

“Right, so...”

The doorbell rang.

Rush sighed and smoked greedily.

“Lets hope he likes pizza,” he said.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to white-throated-packrat for helping me with the research about Glasgow and British accents. Much appreciated as always!

Rush and his annoying wife seemed to have grown tired of screaming at each other. For twenty minutes now, all Gold could hear was Belle, tapping her fingers on the couch and throwing exasperated sighs in his direction. Like a dutiful warden, she was keeping an eye on his every move and when he got up to stretch his legs, she quickly reminded him, “I wasn't kidding about Ariel-”

“I have a bad leg, Miss French,” he told her. In truth, all he wanted was to pace the room to fight the urge to fidget, which would only make him look vulnerable – as would admitting to it out loud, so he chose to tell a lie. In his experience, people were uncomfortable enough with disabilities not to question it.

Belle went as far as to consider his proposition with a suspicious frown, probably expecting him to dart to the front door the moment she got distracted.

“Okay, then,” she conceded, making his blood boil.

“Oh thank you, Miss French! It's so nice to have your approval to _get the fuck up_!” he snapped.

“Keep the attitude and I'll revoke that privilege.”

Gold was about to tell her exactly where she could shove the privilege when the doorbell rang. They looked at each other.

“Should we get that or...?” she asked.

Rush came down stairs before either of them had to make a decision. Belle jumped to her feet and Gold stepped away from the couch so that he wouldn't have to look at his brother, but Rush be-lined for the front door, completely ignoring them. Gloria came down only a minute later, now dressed in cardigan pants and a knit sweater. By now, after analyzing their pictures extensively, he knew that they did not have children, but she still looked like a soccer mom.

Unlike her husband, she walked straight up to him. “Would it have been so hard to call me first?”

It was more of an accusation than a question. Gold shrugged it off, feigning complete indifference, as if he hadn't spent the last half an hour on their couch, as taut as a wire and wishing to escape the mess his anger and impulsivity had created.

“You didn't call first,” was all he said.

Gloria's eyes flared with anger and she pressed her lips together not to say anything she might regret later. So typically English, that one. He thought that America would have taught her to be occasionally rude, but apparently her stay in the land of the free had softened her accent, but not her urge to be proper and polite.

How that snooty Englishwoman ended up with a working-class Glaswegian and managed to make the marriage work for so long was beyond him.

Belle got up from the couch and put herself between the two of them before Gloria threw her self-control out the window and jumped on his neck.

“Hello, Mrs. Rush. My name is Belle French. It's really nice to meet you.”

They shook hands. Gold had to admit, as inconvenient as that girl could be, she did handle other people well.

Gloria looked at him, then at Belle again. “Are you... his girlfriend?”

“No! God, no!”

“ _God_ no?” Gold repeated, affronted.

“I'm just his...” Belle stopped to search for a fitting word. She probably didn't feel inclined to use “friend” when referring to him, especially after what he'd pulled. “I'm his companion for the night.”

Gloria's hand went still mid handshake. Gold chuckled, realizing the poor choice in words before Belle. When she did, her pretty porcelain face turned scarlet.

“Which, I should clarify,” she added, hurriedly, “is not an euphemism for 'escort' and when I say 'night' I really mean 'dinner'. He wanted a, uhn...”

Belle looked back at him, asking for help. Gold said, “She's the only twin I know and she's helping me with research. And in case she didn't make it painfully obvious already, we're not sleeping together.”

“Right, yes, I'm his twin consultant,” Belle said, turning back to Gloria. “And I'm really sorry, Mrs. Rush. I had no idea we were coming by uninvited.”

Gloria nodded. “So he's not your boyfriend or husband?”

“No.”

“Nor your friend?”

“Oh no. I don't even like him.”

Gold cleared his throat and got ready to remind her that, regardless of her opinion of him, he was still paying for her trip, so a little appreciation would be nice, but Gloria didn't give him the chance to speak.

“Do you like pizza?” she asked.

“I suppose I could-”

“No, not you. _Belle_.”

Belle seemed surprised but answered, “Oh! Yes, I do like pizza.”

“Wonderful.” To Gold, she didn't ask, she simply stated, “We're having pizza.” And before Gold had the chance to open his mouth and protest, she turned around and left the room, expecting them to follow her.

They were led into a dinning room, which was not as big as the one in his manor, but it was just as bright and cozy as the rest of the house. It was probably used more often, too. Gold often felt that all the space in his home was wasted on just one person who never got visitors, and only refused to find something more suiting to his loneliness because ostentation meant something in a town so small. The Rushes, though, probably entertained regularly, and he caught himself wondering if Nicholas Rush had a lot of friends, quickly deciding that he didn't. The wife, yes, he could see her having a happy hour with her work friends, but he found it hard to imagine Rush as part of a male group of friends. He wouldn't fit in.

Two pizza boxes had been slammed on the table and they got there in time to see the door on the other side of the dinning room close as Rush scurried into the kitchen. Gloria took some glasses from a beautiful liquor cabinet near the door. Almost all of the spaces for wine bottles were full and she eyed them but decided, wisely, that the situation wouldn't get any more civil by the addition of alcohol – though Gold would've offered his good leg for a sip of Scotch.

Rush came back with a pile of plain, everyday plates and napkins that Belle promptly took off his hands, saying, “Let me get that for you, Mr. Rush. Thank you for inviting us and, once again, we're so very sorry we didn't call first. _Aren't we_ , Mr. Gold?”

Gold threw her an annoyed look and didn't reply.

Gloria said, “I'll go get water-”

But Rush leaped to the door, saying, “I got it.” And disappeared again, clearly planning on avoiding dinner for as long as he could. Gloria took the lead and assigned each one a place, sitting Belle in front of the chair that would belong to her husband, and Gold by her side. Not that he would thank her, but he was still grateful that he wouldn't have to stare at his brother's bearded face the entire dinner.

“It's a truly beautiful house, Mrs. Rush,” Belle said, filling the uncomfortable silence left by Rush's absence.

“Thank you.”

“Have you lived here long?”

“Nine years.”

“That's... nice. Beautiful neighborhood.”

Rush returned, bringing with him a heavy jug of water and the smell of cigarettes on his clothing. Gold had kicked the habit just before Baelfire was born, not wanting to set a bad example as well as needing to save money where he could, but right now the smell of Dunhill was tempting his nostrils and he had to fight the urge to bum a cigarette.

“I was just saying,” Belle told him, as he sat in front of her (clearly, she thought it was up to her to keep the conversation going), “that you have a lovely home, Mr. Rush.”

“Doctor,” he mumbled back, on instinct.

“Excuse me?”

“He said he's a doctor,” Gold relayed to her, when Rush didn't repeat himself.

“Sorry. Dr. Rush-”

“Nick is fine,” he said, in that same, barely audible tone.

Belle looked from one man to the other.

“Won't that be confusing? Given that you both have the same...”

When none of the brothers volunteered a better solution, Belle said, “You know what? I'm sure we'll manage.”

“And who are you again?” Rush asked, realizing that Belle's presence had never been clarified.

Gloria leaned closer to her husband and explained, “She's helping Mr. Gold research twins and, as far as I can tell, is acting as a support system.”

Gold muttered, “Not a very good one.”

They sat in silence for a moment, then Gloria said, “Well... let's eat. This is dinner, after all.”

Rush set aside the smaller box that was supposed to contain the chocolate pizza, and opened the larger one. The chicken and red pepper pizza was immediately disappointing and Rush wished he hadn't gotten so uncharacteristically adventurous with his order.

Gold was the first to speak, “What... is this?”

“Chicken. With red pepper,” Gloria told him, and Rush could see she was just as unimpressed as he was, but was putting up a neutral face to be supportive.

Belle was the only one who looked mildly interested in their food, peering into the box with curious eyes. She said, “In Storybrooke we only have about five choices of pizza. Don't we, Mr. Gold? I don't believe _Tony's_ has updated its menu since the 1950s.”

“That's because _Tony's_ knows pepperoni is the only kind of-”

“But it's nice to try new things,” Belle said, in a reprimanding voice, like addressing a toddler on the verge of a tantrum.

Gold looked at her like she was crazy, but accepted his slice without another complaint. Not that Rush didn't understand where he was coming from. The smell alone lacked in spice and the taste wasn't much better, but he still ate the entire slice. Chewing was better than having to carry on a conversation, a feeling that Gloria and Gold seemed to share. Belle, however, couldn't help but beam, “Hm, this is very good,” and Rush could tell she was being honest, and not just striving to be polite. “I'll be sure to try this at home.”

“So you're a twin, Belle?” Gloria asked, deciding that she couldn't leave the weight of the conversation to fall solely on the poor girl's shoulders.

“I am. It's me and my sister, Lacey. And my dad.”

“And where are you from? I mean, originally?”

“Sydney. We moved to Storybrooke after my mother passed away. Dad figured we needed a change. We own a little flower shop now.”

“That's nice.”

“Yes, it is.” Belle paused. Before silence had the chance to settle, she said, “Funny how we're all from different places, isn't it?”

“Hilarious,” Rush muttered. Gloria slapped his arm. It was hard enough to keep the conversation going without him offending the only person who seemed willing to talk. Rush looked up from his second slice of disappointing pizza, realizing that he'd said that out loud, and said, “I mean, yes. Quite funny. Though we're both British, so...”

He motioned to his wife and himself, but Gold knew that meant nothing. Gloria and Rush might as well have been raised in different worlds. He could tell Gloria was a Londoner – like his own ex-wife, but not quite. He doubted Mrs. Rush and Milah had frequented the same places growing up. There was something distinctly high-end in Gloria's manners and voice, something that Milah had always aspired to be (wealthy, educated, refined) but had fallen short.

Wherever Gloria and Rush had met, he doubted it had been the country club. Rush might be a professor now, but Gold recognized the brogue in his voice, a tad thicker than his own and easy to pin down. Malcolm Gold might have abandoned his second son, but he hadn't been raised so far from home after all.

As if reading his mind, Gloria said, “You can't count that as one country, Nick.”

“I suppose,” he agreed, absentmindedly.

“We're very different, Nick and I,” she told Belle. “When the relationship started, it was like we didn't even speak the same language.”

Rush nodded, “Gorbals is miles away from Kensington.”

“Or Maryhill,” Gold said, in quiet agreement.

“What?” Rush asked, suddenly alert and looking at his brother for the first time.

They stared at each other from across the table, until Gold repeated, “I said, or Maryhill. That was my neighborhood. And my wife was from London, too, so... I suppose I understand.”

With the corner of his eye, Gold could see Belle giving him a smile, looking proud that he was finally making an effort at communicating. Rush, however, didn't seem very impressed.

“Right,” he said, that single word leaving something tense and uncomfortable in the silence that followed.

“And how did you two meet?” Belle asked, resorting to a cliche question to see if that lightened the mood.

“We met at a wedding. He was catering and I was part of the string quartet.”

Gloria reached for Rush's hand, as if signaling for him to take the story from there. Gold could see them at parties, repeating that same story over the years so many times that it had become a little routine, each with their own lines and jokes to tell. This time, Rush didn't seem willing to take part in it, preferring to poke the leftovers on his plate with his fork.

“He offered me a cigarette, when the whole thing was over,” she continued. “And then he said that I played the violin _really well_. Remember what I said to you, then, Nick?”

Her probing was gentle, but Rush still refused to join in the conversation.

“I said... if you're not going to say I'm _fucking fantastic_ , you should say nothing at all.”

Belle giggled. Even Gold made a funny noise with his throat, like he recognized the humor in the situation but refused to find amusement in it.

“He was cute,” Gloria conceded. “But I don't practice twelve hours a day for small compliments. After that, he-”

“Will the two of you gives us some privacy?”

The request came from Rush and it made his brother's head snap up from his plate and both women go quiet.

Belle was the first to say, “Yes, of course. Mr. Gold and I will-”

“No, not the two of you.” Rush looked at his brother, who had turned a shade paler. “We need to talk.”

Gold had to make an effort to remain neutral and keep his voice from shaking when he said, “I suppose we do.”

Gloria looked at her husband and squeezed his hand harder. “Sure you don't want me to-”

“Yes. We might as well get this over with.”

Belle, despite their fight earlier, leaned closer to Gold in similar fashion, saying, “If you'd like for me to stay, I will.” An offer that surprised him a lot. Apparently, the girl, who was headstrong and impertinent when she wanted to, was also reliable and true to her word, which were qualities Gold admired and seldom found in people he did business with.

He was tempted to take her up on the offer. That was why he'd paid her to come along, wasn't it? Being alone with Rush wasn't something he'd planned to happen, but he wouldn't give him the satisfaction of needing a girl to hold his hand through their confrontation.

“I'm fine. I'll call if I need you,” he said. Then, he added, “But thank you.”

Belle gave him the tiniest smile and allowed Gloria to take her back to the living room, leaving both brothers behind to talk.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Rush didn't waste time with niceties, which was something Gold appreciated. He didn't want to sit in uncomfortable silence any longer and would much rather get to the point than tiptoe around each other. As soon as the door was closed and their respective companions were gone, Rush dove straight into the heart of the matter: “Why are you even here?”

Gold fiddled with the handle of his cane, searching his mind for an honest answer, or at least an answer that would sound plausible enough to satisfy the other man. When nothing came to mind, he shrugged.

“What, you just flew to the other side of the country because you wanted to be a prick?” Rush asked, but not as aggressively as his wife would have. In fact, Gold could tell that the other man knew there was some humor in their situation and would have found the story funny, had he heard it from someone else rather than being at the center of it.

“Most people who know me wouldn't find that so out of character,” Gold told him.

“Is that it, then?”

Gold wished he could put this whole thing down to being petty, but he couldn't. The moment Belle had left his shop, not a month ago, he'd continued to drink with the intention of erasing the memory of _the other one_ from his mind. It worked as well as one might expect and, as he fought a violent hangover the following morning, Gold had to admit to himself that this was real. This was happening. It was yet another way his father had found to complicate his life.

Despite his quick thinking and adaptability, dealing with uncertainties had never been one of Gold's strengths. He didn't like the thought of this stranger, who had been handed his complete biography and lived only a plane ticket away, being able to do whatever he pleased with the information. Perhaps coming here had been his way to restore balance. They both had intruded on each others' lives, they were now on equal ground.

Rush was still waiting for an answer.

“I suppose I needed to see this with my own eyes,” Gold said. “I had to know you were real.”

From the other side of the dinner table, Rush spread his arms. “Do you see me?”

“Yes.”

“Do I look real to you?”

“Quite.”

“And what do you want to do about it?”

Gold shook his head, at a loss. “I'm not sure.”

“Figures.”

There was a faint sound of female voices coming from the other room and Rush didn't like that. Gloria wasn't one to overhear private conversations but he'd already underestimated her meddling once. He got up and went to the liquor cabinet. “What's your poison?”

Gold licked his parched lips. “Scotch, if you have it.”

He watched Rush closely as the other man looked for two tumblers and a bottle of spirits. Same DNA or not, the differences between the two of them were glaring. Living in California had turned Rush slightly tanned, where Gold held on to a pale complexion, courtesy of Maine weather and his own refusal to leave the house more often. The cane meant that he had to be careful about his every move, but Rush moved around comfortably and fast. He envied the way he'd tackled the stairs earlier, two steps at a time and with surprising speed. More than anything, though, he detested the way his twin dressed, with his wrinkled shirt and jeans. Gold only owned one pair of jeans that he hadn't worn in four years; to see a mirror image of himself trapped so comfortably in something that casual was a travesty.

He didn't know at the time, but Rush was equally displeased with his twin's appearance. From the way he held himself, stiff and with a perfect posture, to his peering eyes that seemed to be constantly calculating everything around him. That man, his manners, and his clothes screamed of money and arrogance, a combination he'd learned to detest years ago. Meeting Gloria's wealthy family had only aggravated that dislike. Hell, if he'd first met her father looking and behaving like _this_ , instead of like the scrawny, snarky kid in a cheap suit he'd been, the old man would've probably been impressed rather than tell his daughter she could do much better.

When the bottle of Johnnie Walker clinked out of the liquor cabinet, Gold sighed with delight. Gold Label, thank _god_! He could've drained the entire bottle in one swallow. When he reached for the glass, though, Rush motioned for him to get up and follow.

If there was one good thing he could say about Rush was that he didn't bother to walk slowly, check on his progress, or offered to hold the door open for him to limp through. He could tell, despite only knowing Gold for about an hour, that he wouldn't appreciate his help and, more to the point, he didn't need it. Rush didn't underestimate him.

They walked through their pristine kitchen and into the backyard, which, compared to the rest of their home, looked rather unkempt with the tall grass and the old patio furniture. There was a single naked lamp above the door that glowed weak and orange under the dark blue sky. Clearly, the Rushes weren't the kind of people who enjoyed fresh air all that much. There was a wooden shed near the back wall where they probably kept the lawnmower and Gold could imagine Gloria probing her husband in that gentle, English way of hers, with subtle hints for him to go cut the grass, only to be told that he'd do that “tomorrow”.

Rush placed the tumblers on the patio table and poured the Scotch generously.

Gold took the glass that was offered to him and said, “Cheers,” to no one in particular before taking a large sip.

Rush did the same. He lowered the glass with a sigh, “I should've bought the Blue Label-” just as Gold said, “You should've gotten the Blue Label-”

As soon as they heard the words coming from the other's mouth, they stopped talking. They hadn't spoken with the perfect synchronicity one might see in a movie, but it was still the same words, the same thought. Something brothers might do. The kind of thing that Belle and her sister did all the time, and then giggled themselves silly over it.

Gold and Rush didn't find it funny. In fact, they hated everything about it.

Rush broke the silence first by grumbling into his glass, “This thing is freaky.”

“On that we can agree.”

Despite the fact that there were two patio chairs, Rush walked past him and sat down on the kitchen door step. It was terrible for his back but it remained his favorite spot in the house. There was nothing as soothing as watching the night sky from there with a drink in his hand. Gloria, who'd much rather stay inside and avoid the mosquitoes, would join him on occasion. She'd point at a star and tell him its name. “You said I'd forget it, but I still remember it,” she'd tell him, with a victorious smile. More often than not, she'd get it wrong, but he didn't always rub it in her face.

He doubted Gold appreciated small things such as the night sky, a quiet evening, or a woman who loved you and who still remembered silly things you told her on your first date. Men like Gold had no time to waste on things so trivial.

Gold was watching him, tumbler in hand.

“You can sit,” Rush said.

“I'd rather stand.”

Rush didn't argue. He drained his glass, then signaled for Gold to fill it up for him, which he did – and then filled his own empty tumbler even more generously than before.

“I didn't ask you to come, you know?” Rush said, once Gold had stepped away. “You might not know what you want, but I sure did.”

“And what is it that you want?” Gold asked, without hostility.

“I wanted to get this mess out of the way so that I could go back to my life. But I guess you and Gloria had different plans.”

“I was not in cahoots with your wife, Dr. Rush. I was fine-”

He was interrupted by a dry chuckle. “You pompous bastard.”

“Excuse me?”

“ _Doctor_ Rush. Do you expect me to call you _mister_?”

“I'm not calling you by my own name.”

“ _Your_ name? Did you trademark it? That wasn't in the dossier.”

Under the orange light, Gold's face twisted with frustration. Rush took another sip of his Scotch, feeling pretty good with that small accomplishment.

“I was fine, Rush,” Gold repeated, ignoring his remark, “living in blissful ignorance. Your nosy wife was the one who showed up at my shop and ruined a perfectly good life.”

“Then go back to living in blissful ignorance. I'm not stopping you,” Rush told him, with simplicity.

Gold stared at him. “You're not...”

“What?”

“ _Disturbed_ by this? At all?”

“Why should I be disturbed?”

His answer was so calm and controlled it was unnerving.

“Because that seems like the appropriate reaction to a secret twin brother!” Gold snapped, realizing that, while he was losing his mind in Maine, the other one was moving on with his life unaffected by the news that had turned his world upside down.

Rush got off his step and came to the patio table to get more Scotch, saying, “Spoken like a man who never had to probe into his own past.” When he looked up from the glass, Gold had his eyes on him, a curious frown on his face. “What?”

“So you looked for him.”

“For whom?”

“Dad.”

Rush scoffed. _Dad_. Of course Gold would say that word so naturally, being as close to the old man as he seemed to be. He only remembered calling George Rush “dad” on a couple of occasions, always matter-of-factly, never with affection. George much rather he referred to him as “sir”, a term Rush usually infused with as much spite as he could.

“I looked _into_ him, not _for_ him.”

“When?” Gold asked.

“Sometime in university. I got curious. I wanted to know if he was as bad as my parents told me. Worthless drunk, I think was their favorite term.”

To his surprise, Gold nodded. “Sounds about right.”

“I didn't like what I found, so I took it no further,” he explained. “I suppose I was hoping for someone different.”

“Did you think you descended from royalty?”

“I thought he might be a good man.”

“That's too much to expect from the likes of Malcolm Gold. Was yours different?” he asked, over the brim of his glass, drowning the question in Scotch a second later.

“My what?”

“Your father, or foster family, or wherever the hell he dropped you.”

“He _dropped_ me with George and Linda, and I assure you they were much worse.”

Gold made a sound that caught his attention.

“You think that's funny?”

“Pardon me?”

“You chuckled.”

“It's a little amusing.”

“What is?” he asked, with an edge to his voice.

“The thought that there is someone worse than Malcolm Gold out there. It's hard to swallow.”

“It's true.”

Gold emptied his glass, then stated, “They chose you.”

“What?”

“You didn't just _happen_ accidentally. They _chose_ to have you, which is more than I can say-”

Rush groaned loudly. “ _Oh_ , not this _bullshit_ again!”

“What?” Gold asked, sharply.

“Adoptive parents can regret their children just as much as anyone,” he said, sounding to Gold like he'd had to repeat that argument several times in the past. “And they can get pretty vocal about it, too.”

“That is _besides the point_!” Gold shouted back.

“But _of course_ you'd think foster parents are great. He gave _you_ to a nice auntie. No wonder you had no problem abandoning _your_ son.”

Rush waited for the loud reply that was sure to follow, but it didn't come. Instead, Gold dropped his voice to a warning and said, “I didn't abandon my son, you self-righteous prick, and don't you ever say that again.”

There was a weakness there to be explored, a button he could push until the other man snapped, but something told Rush to fight the urge to get under Gold's skin. Right now, he looked ready to pounce if the boy was brought up again and, cane or no cane, Rush didn't think he'd stand a chance in a physical confrontation. And worse, Gloria and Belle would have to be the ones to break them up.

“Why's he in New York, then?” he asked, his tone more curious than confrontational. “The dossier they gave me-”

“The dossier they gave you is full of shit. He's in New York because they have better schools and he'll have a better future there than in a cow town in the middle of nowhere. And I'm not with him,” he added, knowing the question that would follow, “because I need to work. It'd have been selfish to bring him to Storybrooke with me.”

There were faulty points in that logic that could've been easily pointed out, but Rush held his tongue. Gold cursed and refilled his glass one more time. Half the Scotch in the bottle was already gone.

“I did not abandon him,” he continued. “Mary is my friend and she's taking good care of him. And I miss him. Do you believe our father missed either of us?”

It wasn't a rhetorical question, but Rush still didn't answer.

“He didn't. He dropped you with your parents, and then me with his aunt and didn't think of us a single day of his life. I don't even know why I love the bastard.”

“But you do love the bastard,” Rush pointed out, unmoved. “How bad can he really be?”

Gold muttered, “Fuck you,” then limped away from him in the confined space of his backyard, the sound of the cane muffled on the tall grass as he paced from the table to the wall. Rush finally pulled up a chair and waited for Gold to come back, but he took his time. That at least allowed Rush to drink in peace.

Gloria showed up at the kitchen door a minute later, probably concerned with all the screaming. “Is everything alright?” she asked.

“Everything's fine,” Rush answered, drunk and without looking at her. If Gloria tried to suggest it was time to put the Scotch away, he might take his anger out on her – but she simply closed the door with a quiet, “Call me if you need me.”

Gold came back when his glass became empty once again, his face turning red because of the alcohol. He'd pulled his tie loose – only slightly, but it was enough to make him look disheveled.

“You should ask me,” Gold told him.

“I should ask you what?”

“Why you.”

“Why?”

“Because it must have crossed your mind. It crossed mine plenty.”

“Maybe,” Rush conceded, thinking of the many nights he'd barely slept in the past couple of months, his lack of concentration, the cigarettes, all of it going back to that exact question that had permeated his thoughts without pity since Dr. Jackson had decided that giving Rush his family history was a kindness, rather than a nuisance. However, he wouldn't give Gold the satisfaction of knowing he was right. “I'm not going to, though.”

“Why not?”

“Because there isn't a satisfying answer to that question.”

“Chicken.”

“I'm an orphan, Gold,” he reminded him, his temper flaring again. “I've been down this road before and I know where it leads. Which is more than you can-”

“He left me too, Rush.”

“He chose you! And I don't care _why_ he did it. What matters is that he _did_. No justification is ever going to change that.”

Gold shook his head. “You're naive if you think that makes me special.”

“I think that makes you an arsehole, but that's besides the point.”

“Let me tell you something, _little brother_.”

Rush glared at him, the contemptuous term making him angrier than anything else that Gold had told him that night.

“The reason that man didn't come looking or you was that he already had a son to look after him when he drank, and to carry him home from the pub, and to go pick him up at the hospital or the police station when he got into trouble. I'm the one he comes to for money, and food, and help. I _moved to another country_ and I still couldn't get away from him.”

Rush shrugged. “Clearly, you're not trying hard enough.”

Gold huffed, as if realizing he was talking to a very stupid person.

“Your parents must have been exceptionally cruel to you,” he stated, without sympathy, “or else you'd understand.”

“Perhaps it's just you, _big brother_ , who needs to grow a pair.”

To his surprise, Gold muttered, “Perhaps I do,” and pulled up the other chair for himself. He tried to take another sip, realized the glass was empty, then dropped it so heavily on the table Rush feared it would shatter into his hand.

“Look at the two of us,” Gold said, after a moment of silence. “Bickering over who's been more miserable. Can't get more pathetic than that.”

Rush stared at the bottom of his own tumbler and made the rest of his Scotch swirl before swallowing it down. The truth was that time had screwed them over. Perhaps if they had found each other earlier, before life had had its chance to scar them and make them the men they were, then this might have gone differently. As it was, Rush didn't feel like he could do anything but compare wounds with this stranger. There was no comfort or answers to be found here, only a rivalry in sadness.

“No. We really can't,” he agreed.

“This is why you shouldn't pry into the past,” Rush said. “You'll find nothing but disappointment.”

“Perhaps you're right,” Gold granted.

Rush saw him eyeing what was left of the Johnnie Walker and said, “You can have that. Gloria will probably give me hell in the morning.”

“What I want is to keep drinking until I forget we're related, but there isn't enough alcohol in the world.”

“What does it matter that we're related anyway?” Rush said, more a statement than a question. When Gold didn't say anything, though, Rush narrowed his eyes at him, calculating. Then, he leaned forward. “Do you believe that blood bonds you to me?”

Gold looked up from the bottle he'd been contemplating and into his eyes. The same eyes he'd see in the mirror, just as drunk and just as tired as his own. He didn't like them – and the beard and the jeans and the man – now any more than he did when the night began, but he couldn't look away either. What Rush had said had gotten his attention.

“You owe me nothing, Gold,” he stated, harshly. “And I owe nothing to you. As far as I'm concerned, you can go back to your small town and you won't hear from me or my wife again.”

“And what about Bae?”

Rush blinked at him. “Who?”

“Baelfire. My son?” he added, when the name of the boy seemed to ring no bells.

“You call your son Bae?” he asked, with a hint of mockery in his voice. Like a little brother might sound.

Gold ignored the remark and proceeded, “I need your word that this won't reach my son. He's already had enough disappointment as it is.”

There was a faint memory in the back of Rush's mind, something about the boy's mother having no contact with him since his parents' divorce. Did Gloria gave him those pages as well? The ones telling him where the lad's mother was, these days? Maybe he'd like to give them to ( _his nephew_ ) Baelfire.

“I have no interest in your son.”

“What about your wife?”

“She won't be an issue.”

Gold nodded. Then, he got up so quickly it made him sway drunkenly on his feet. Rush got ready to catch him – the last thing he needed was for the other one to slam his head on the patio table – but Gold regained his balance and pressed the palm of his free hand into his eye socket. “I drank too much.”

“We both did,” Rush said, in agreement, not really sure that he could get up without falling on his face either. “Gloria can get you a cab.”

“Belle's driving,” Gold told him, his face still pained and clearly disoriented. He groaned. “I hope she can do _that_ quietly.”

He lowered his hand and looked at his brother until he came into focus.

“Do we have an understanding?”

Rush nodded. “We have an understanding.”

Gold tried to nod as well but it made his head spin. Rush waited. After what seemed like an eternity, his brother started moving, gripping the cane for dear life. As he passed by his chair, his free hand landed on his shoulder and it occurred to Rush that they hadn't even shaken hands since this whole thing began. _This_ was as close as they could ever be.

 _This_ was a sign that it was truly over.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops?
> 
> So, not the tearful reunion some might have expected, but this is how the story goes. If this made you sad, don't worry. I'm sure the brothers will meet each other again in a sequel :)


End file.
